The traditional approach to fishing has been pretty straight forward: find fish, harvest them like mad to chase decreasing catches to ensure profit, oppose catch limits and environmental regulations, move on when fishery collapses.
This approach, of course, has led to global overfishing and stock collapses as well as scientists predicting a global ocean fish stock collapse within the next 50 years.
Now economists are proposing an alternative approach to profitable fishing: reducing worldwide fish catches.
In the article, Quentin Grafton, one of the study’s coauthors, states:
“…our results prove that the highest profits are made when fish numbers are allowed to rise beyond levels traditionally considered optimal. In other words, bigger stocks mean bigger bucks.”
The reasoning for the increase is that when fish are plentiful and easy to catch, fishers can save costs by spending less money on fuel and other related costs.
While this study paints a potential path forward, there is one issue that is not set in stone: does the fishing industry care about long-term profits more than short-term profits? Where do the economic interests of highly mobile, high seas fleets lie? Is long term profit enough of an incentive for a change in short term practice?
