Fishers' individual salmon harvesting rights: an option for Canada's Pacific fisheries

Abstract

Canada's Pacific salmon fisheries are again in a crisis of declining stocks, excess fishing effort and poor returns. Changes in fisheries management which may help resolve some of these problems include licence buy-backs, individual transferable quotas, additional effort controls, single gear licensing and area licensing or combination thereof. This paper proposes an alternative fishers' individual salmon harvesting rights which provide fishers with rights to bid for the privilege of participating in salmon fishing openings.