At the 1996 World Fisheries Congress, Donald A. McCaughran declared seventyfive
years of regulatory success for the International Pacific Halibut Commission. The
Commission's mandate was to reverse the precipitous decline in halibut stocks that had
become apparent in the 1910's, and save this fishery from economic extinction. The
biologists and fishermen who sat on the Commission assumed that the appropriate
biological target was the one that yielded the maximum sustainable harvest. Using a
bioeconomic model of the fishery and regression analysis, I argue the Commission's use
of global quotas to achieve its biological goal of maximum sustained yield was most
certainly an economic failure. I also argue its policies were very likely a biological
failure, as well. While arguably accomplishing its biological goal of the maximum
sustainable yield in 1960, dynamic bioeconomic theory indicates their policies probably
destabilized the biological fishery. The paper will first sketch the historical background
of the industry. Then the regulatory history will be discussed. Then the economic
literature will be reviewed as it applies to the Pacific halibut industry. Finally, the
historical data will be examined and the proposition that the regulatory management of
the halibut fishery was a success will be tested. The period 1928 to 1960 is covered as it
provides both reliable data and a continuous period of regulation, at the end of which the
biological goal of maximum sustainable yields was apparently achieved. In conclusion, I
find that statistically the fishermen were insensitive to the direct effects of the quota and
the total quantity of fish available, and instead responded to the quota's indirect effects
on the fishermen's costs, which induced the inflow of greater fishing capital than
otherwise would have occurred.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11684 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Desharnais, Craig |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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