Sharing the Catch Helps Avert Collapse of Fisheries, Study Says

Cooperation, not competition, is better for fishermen and fish alike, a new study says. Nearly a third of the world’s commercial fisheries are in collapse — defined as catches running at least 90 percent below historic highs — according to a previous team of scientists, who compiled 50 years of data from more than 11,000 fisheries. Now, analyzing that data, scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara found that fisheries that followed the traditional free-for-all approach were twice as likely to collapse as those that assigned exclusive shares of the catch to individual fishermen or fishing cooperatives. By eliminating the mad scramble to get there first, the sharing system offers incentives to fish more sustainably and can produce a steadier supply of fresh fish while earning fishermen higher per-pound prices.