A combination of state and market through ITQs in the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery: the tail wagging the dog?

Planning for macro-scale issues such as sustainability is often the responsibility of the state. The market, on the other hand, is the sphere in which rights-based exchanges are coordinated between at times hundreds of agents through the mechanism of price. Few fisheries, however, are entirely state planned or market coordinated, but are a combination of both. This paper draws on a 2-year social impact assessment of the introduction of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) in the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery in Australia. This introduction was grafted onto technical conservation measures and input restrictions that stretched back over more than 100 years. The principal lesson to be learnt from the Tasmanian case is that ownership and transferability of entitlements require careful consideration concerning the social character of the fishery as well as the state's stake in the fishery. In managing a fishery using ITQs, the state risks giving up too much power to the market as legally strong individual private access rights-holders can act as an impediment to responsible planning at the fishery-wide scale. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.