Market-Based Mechanisms – Improving Fisheries Management? - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 187

Chapter 9
Market-Based Mechanisms -
Improving Fisheries Management?

Duncan Leadbitter

9.1 Introduction

Fish have been taken for a variety of reasons over the millennia, and examples of
overfishing or other unacceptable impacts can be found in many types of fisheries,
such as subsistence, sport and market (Jackson et al. 2001, McPhee et al . 2002,
Mullon et al . 2005). However, despite commonly held views, overfishing and other
impacts on fisheries have not arisen simply as a consequence of industrialisation
of fishing in the recent past (Jackson et al . 2001). Despite these problems, the
demand for seafood has grown enormously, placing hitherto unknown demands on
resources and, it could be argued, has created the need for new tools to ensure that
sustainability is the dominant factor guiding the future use of seafood resources.
Traditional approaches to fisheries management have relied on creating a series
of rules to constrain the harvest. These rules may be government sanctioned or
administered by non-government organisations such as fishing associations, but
irrespective of this fact, the intended effect is to control supply of seafood products.
The demand side has largely remained unaffected, at least as far as sustainability
is concerned, except in an indirect sense when the influence of scarcity and simple
market abundance/absence effect on price may have an influence the demand. In
terms of active influence on demand, sellers of seafood have always sought to create
demand by promotion of some attribute of the seafood product to increase sales.
Attempts to directly affect demand for the purposes of influencing sustainability
are a relatively recent phenomenon. As will be set out below, the rationale for such
intervention is based on the many examples of the failure (partial or total) of supply-
side catch constraints. This does not mean that such constraints are valueless, but
that demand-side controls may provide additional solutions. Used together, a more
effective system can result.
Seafood is one of the most highly traded commodities in the world. Supply
chains may be long and complex, extending across hemispheres, and thus sup-
ply and demand may not be obviously linked. However, as discussed below, the