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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

Textbook "tragedy of the commons".

I understand Iceland and New Zealand has systems with property rights for fishing grounds, which has solved these problems.

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The EU regulates the amount of fish that can be caught, too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy , https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp_en).

It went even as far as stopping all fishing of herring in 1977-1982. That worked (in the sense of “herring didn’t go extinct, so there still is something to catch”)

The EU probably has the worst system in the world, at least by total impact.

> "every year, the European Commission makes recommendations on the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) to the Council of Ministers based on scientific evidence. The Council of Ministers, however, often disregards these recommendations because, as a rule, the priority for these ministers seems to protect jobs in the short term, not to maintain sustainability. As a consequence, the annual catch agreed to by the Council of Ministers is generally around 48 per cent more than the scientists’ recommended figure. The fact that 88 per cent of European fish stocks, measured against maximum sustainable yield (MSY), are overexploited is due in part to these excessively high catch quotas."

From https://worldoceanreview.com/en/wor-1/fisheries/fisheries-ma...

Yes, but there are also frequent claims of padded scientists' recommendations, so for some exceeding those recommendations is justified.

AFAIK herring is now at very healthy levels again in the North Sea, right? I was under the impression that it's one of the few "good" fish you could still eat nowadays, or should I adjust those dietary habits again?

I’m not an expert, but I think it’s more or less sustainable, but not at the levels just before the moratorium (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274558008_Recruitme...), and a lot lower than historical levels (can’t find a simple reference, but there’s data that on that. Found https://edepot.wur.nl/317580, which isn’t that clear and certainly not succinct)

Thanks!

New Zealand has fisheries management with a lot of quota provided to Maori Iwi (tribes) who in turn might sell the quota or run a fishing business outright or in partnership. Additionally Maori have customary fishing rights for funerals and other customary events.

I am not quite sure what you mean by property rights and what it means in reference to other places.

On a side note, New Zealand just changed a number of significant fishing rules for commercial and recreational fisherman. The new restrictions on types of fishing that are allowed are to help protect both the Hectors dolphin (est. 10,000 left) and the Maui dolphin (est. 50 left.

It is good to see these unilateral efforts are possible in NZ due to their being no competing interests who have legal entitlement to the same waters.

Annecdotally, It is still relatively easy to go to the beach in NZ and catch a few fish of 2 - 6kg in size.

https://www.mpi.govt.nz/protection-and-response/sustainable-...

> I am not quite sure what you mean by property rights

The "property" is the quota, the proportion of the total allowed catch of a species. As you say quotas can be bought and sold, so they are ordinary property.

(The total catch is set annually, sometimes even based on the recommendations of fisheries experts.)

Property rights did not solve overfishing problems in NZ. We have had crashing fish stocks, and new problems like exploited foreign workers.

Plus Iceland just declared control over huge swaths of the ocean and we are all immensely better off because of this unilateral action.

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