From How to Save New England's Fishing Villages: If only the fishers will allow it:
We know that IFQs work. They were adopted against great opposition in various Alaskan fisheries including the halibut, sablefish, and pollock fisheries in the 1990s. The halibut season was once 10 months long, but due to overfishing, the government fisheries managers kept shortening the season as way to limit catches. It didn't work; the fishers boosted their catches with better and better gear. By 1994, the halibut season was down to two chaotic 24 hour "derbies," yet the overall catch size was about the same that it had been when the season had lasted 10 months.
...
In 1995, the madness came to an end when fishers finally adopted IFQs. IFQs work by assigning rights to a percentage of a scientifically determined total annual allowable catch to specific fishers. ... Under the IFQs, the halibut season was expanded to 245 days, and fisher safety has greatly increased because boats can stay in port when the weather is bad. The pressure to overfish is now much less because IFQ holders understand that 1 percent of a bigger pie is better, so they leave more fish breeding in the sea so they can catch more in the future.
Note: IFQs are Individual Fishing Quotas, different from Individual Transferable Quotas (i.e., tradeable). Thanks to env-econ reader Joshua Corning for the tip.
