Facts
- America imports 80% of the fish it consumes, because the amount we catch doesn't satisfy the demand for fish
- Government implements Days at Sea program to limit how many days fishermen are allowed to spend fishing-- the fishermen are upset that government tries to control the problem instead of coming up with another solution that doesn't target them
- There is a ridiculously high barrier of entry (is that the right term?) for the fishing industry. If you're not part of a fishing family but want to become a fisherman, the cost of permits, boats, etc. can amount to $500,000 per boat.
Problems
- Fishermen are unhappy with the fact that they are only allowed to fish a limited number of days. limited as in 26 out of 365. (To be honest, I'd be unhappy too.)
- If they fish on a good day, they catch too much and there's bycatch. If they fish on a bad day, they don't catch anything at all.
- [Many] Fishermen don't believe that that there's an issue with overfishing. Their view: there has been some shift in the populations of fish, but there ARE still fish in the ocean, and there are definitely fish in the closed areas. Scientific data tells them that the fish populations are declining, so the government tells them to stop fishing. Scientific data tells them that the fish populations are still declining, even when they've cut down on the amount they're allowed to catch, so they feel it's not entirely an issue of catching too much fish.
- Fishermen think scientists don't believe/understand them and their trade.
- closed areas and quotas change frequently, making it more complicated for them to determine where they fish if they fish at all.
- Can't make a living off fishing anymore, and are discouraging kids from going into the trade. Fishing will be gone in two generations unless something is done.
- Fishing is a scattered industry made of small businesses, and fishermen have no representation in Washington, i.e. weak lobbying, etc.
Solutions
I sort of brainstormed a couple ideas when I got back. Some people said that we should just develop a solution to solve all the large scale global problems and just ignore fishermen because they're such a small percentage of the population and they can't be convinced that there is a problem in the first place. I think that it's possible to develop a solution that works on the big scale while still improving the fishermen's current situation.
GPS devices (basically what Greg suggested before)
This solves Problem #5. With the technology we have today, we can easily develop a touch screen that shows a map of the area and where fishermen can or cannot fish, and it can be updated instantaneously.
On the other hand, this will cost the government money if we are to subsidize them.
Get rid of Days at Sea program.
This will make fishermen happy because they get to do their job. This also doesn't solve any of the fish problems whatsoever, and we would need to develop a completely new way of controlling how much fish get caught.
Find them jobs
Some guy who talked to us spent a lot of his time working for a research institution because he can only fish for so many days in the year. The fishermen definitely sound like they have an thorough knowledge of what goes on in the fisheries (at least in terms of fish population trends and where to find certain types of fish), even if many of them don't have college degrees.
He said that a lot of times he'll be taking out researchers in his fishing vessel to gather data, but then the coast guard chases him down for entering closed areas, fishing without a permit for the day, etc. Also, he's not doing research related to the fish he's been catching for the past 30 years.
Jobs in science would definitely help create a link and better understanding between scientists and fishermen (Problem 3, 4). Problem is, there are far more fishermen than there are jobs (guy said that he was lucky; some of his friends are now off working at home depot), and hiring them will cost money. (government subsidize again?)
Quotas
Addressing Problem 2: say the quota is 500 lbs of fish, and a fisherman catches 520 lbs. what if, instead of penalizing the fisherman for going above the quota or throwing that extra 20 lbs. out as bycatch, we keep the 20 lbs. and sell it? the fisherman would only make money off the amount he catches within the quota and not the extra 20 lbs., so there isn't an actual incentive for him to catch above the quota. but would selling an extra 20 lbs. of fish and having that money go to some cause (I was thinking funds to solve Problem 7, but that would create an incentive to fish above quotas. maybe give the proceeds to the government? scientific research?) be better than dumping 20 lbs. of dead fish back into the ocean? what fishing methods allow bycatch to stay alive, in which case it's probably a better idea to dump the fish back? what's the cost of processing this extra bycatch (storing, cooling, sorting) and is it low enough so that people who process fish be willing to do this without making any profit?
Subsidize fishermen
This would solve #6. We said before that subsidies are bad because they increase the fishing effort and fishermen use the bonus towards buying more fishing equipment, etc. In Gloucester, at least, it seems like the fishermen can't increase their fishing effort due to Days at Sea anyway.
But subsidies cost the government money. We'll be paying out of our tax dollars to sustain the fishermen.
Also, fishermen don't want to be bought out. The guys in Gloucester talked about how yes, they need money and to be making a living, etc. but they also want to earn that through fishing, because that's their job and they don't like being told they can't do their job. Problem 1 still persists.
inflating the price of fish
If there's such a high demand for fish (fact 1), raising the prices will reduce the demand in the first place. If the price of fish doubles, fewer people will be willing to buy it, and thus less fish need to be caught. Consumers will directly bear the price, and so this would be a good way to get everyone (in America) to be aware of what's going on. A problem would be that low income families will no longer be able to purchase fish. But how big of a problem is this in America, where there are other substitutes for protein? Another issue may be the economic consequences of raising fish prices, i.e. will beef prices go up? etc.
One way to do this would be to create a high tariff barrier, which makes imported fish (i.e. 80% of what we eat) much more expensive than it should be. The money the government makes off the tariffs can go to funding those GPS devices, or some other fish conservation efforts.
Would raising the price of imported fish also raise the price of domestic fish? (someone with a better economics background help me out here.) This would help Problem 6, since the fishermen would be catching the same amount but making more money off of it, and thus be making more money in general.
On the other hand, raising tariff barriers probably violates a bunch of international trade regulations. Maybe, since we're the international regulation group anyways, we need to create a law that grants exceptions towards fish?
Another way (or maybe this is inherently the same?) is for the government to set price floors. Basically there is a minimum price for fish that is higher than the equilibrium price. Not entirely sure how this works in terms of supply and demand (and the fact that we basically have a fixed domestic supply and a very large demand) and how the government/industry could carry this out.