Marine Policy 26 (2002) 459–469

Private property and public interest in fisheries management:the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery

Gregory Phillips*, Lorne Kriwoken, Peter Hay

Centre for Environmental Studies, School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252-78 Hobart,

Tasmania 7001, Australia

Received 28 May 2002; accepted 9 June 2002

Abstract

In 1998 a management system based on individual transferable quota (ITQ) was introduced in the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery.

This marked the continuation of a management trend that has favoured economic efficiency at the cost of reduced employment and

greater restrictions on access to the fishery. The authors discuss management trends in the fishery in the context of Tasmania’s

history, and social and political characteristics, which it is argued, have shaped development of Tasmania’s resource management

culture. Implications for social equality, economic well-being and environmental sustainability are discussed. In conclusion the

difficulty of reforming policy that has been shaped by vested interests and which establishes rent-seeking activity is considered.

r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fisheries; Tasmania; Rent-seeking; Public interest

1. Introduction

In recent decades there has been a trend towardsfishery management systems based on private propertyrights such as individual transferable quota (ITQ).Iceland, South Africa, Canada, Australia and NewZealand are among the pioneers of ITQ fishery manage-ment systems and their use continues to be adoptedmore widely in spite of concerns and a growing body ofcriticism about their social and regional economicimpacts. Justification for introducing private-propertybased fishery management systems generally rests ontwo foundations that relate to conservation andeconomic efficiency [1]. First, there is the argument thatconstraint over access and/or fishing effort is necessaryin order to safeguard biological sustainability. Andsecond, it is argued that the form of constraint chosenshould promote economic efficiency in the conventionalsense. This view of economic efficiency, embraced byneo-liberal economic orthodoxy, emphasises the inter-ests of capital—the medium of power in complex,

modern societies—but it is disconnected from economicperspectives that relate to social and regional economicwell-being, and it serves to invalidate conservationmeasures that compromise establishment interests.Control over access to resources is the essence of powerin any society, and this applies to control over access tofishery resources, which is often highly politicised.

The trend towards privatisation of fishery resourcesthrough ITQ and other mechanisms can be viewed froma socio-political perspective. Based on an integratedstudy of general social, political and economic tenden-cies, Olson [2] demonstrated how special interest groupswith a vested interest in promoting particular policieshave an advantage over those with a broader interest inthe well-being of society as a whole. He argued that,over time, special interest groups, usually with govern-ment help, accumulate privileges and monopolies at theexpense of the public interest. Redistributive coalitionsbecome more and more entrenched. Prosperity isundermined as redistributive activities come to predo-minate, and productive activities suffer increasinglyfrom the predation of these rent-seeking coalitions.Social well-being and the public good are degraded asresources are monopolised by a governing class of self-serving owners (claiming the overriding priority of

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-3-622-62834; fax: +61-3-622-

62989.

E-mail address: gregory.phillips@utas.edu.au (G. Phillips).

0308-597X/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S 0 3 0 8 - 5 9 7 X ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 2 6 - X

private property rights), bureaucrats, managers andother rent-seekers. This progression, if not disturbed bysome significant disruption to the social, political andeconomic order, inevitably leads to the development of asociety dominated by contesting groups preoccupiedwith property rights and the maintenance of privilegesattached to social status. The consequence is pooreconomic productivity and a society characterised bypoverty, entrenched inequality, and civic and institu-tional dysfunction.

Olson’s model is relevant to issues raised by Mat-thiasson [3] concerning the economic effects of theadoption of ITQ in Iceland’s fishery sector. Matthiassonnotes a tendency for resource-rich countries to beeconomically less successful than resource-poor ones.He identifies the problems associated with rent-seekingbehaviour and considers how to prevent income fromresource wealth ruining the prospects for economic (andsocial) progress. The critical problem, he argues, is thatinterest groups have been allowed to determine theshape of Iceland’s fisheries management systems.

In this paper we consider how interest groups haveinfluenced the development of policy in Tasmania’s rocklobster fishery and discuss the implications. The papercommences with a brief background to Tasmania’shistory, social and political character, which is linked tothe resource management culture that has evolved overtime. We then consider how regulation of the rocklobster fishery has developed through various steps tothe current management system based on ITQ thatserves rent-seeking, vested interests at the expense of theinterests of a wider Tasmanian community. This isdiscussed in relation to the social and political char-acteristics of Tasmanian society, which are associatedwith institutional and structural barriers to progressivechange.

2. Background: Tasmania’s social and political culture

Tasmania is the smallest state within the AustralianFederation. It is made up of one large and severalsmaller islands situated to the south of the Australianmainland, and separated from it by the 250 km width ofBass Strait. The population is approximately 470,000and the economy depends to a large extent onagriculture and resource extraction industries, withtourism also important. Tasmania persistently has theweakest economy and highest levels of unemployment ofall Australian states.

European settlement of Tasmania began in 1803 withthe establishment of a penal colony near the mouth ofthe River Derwent. The transportation of convicts fromEngland to Tasmania continued for 50 years and it left alegacy that was to have a profound influence on theongoing development of Tasmania’s social, political and

resource management cultures. Control over access toresources was a priority for a colonial administrationdetermined to maintain the established social order,during the convict era and later, as society made thegradual transition from one based on an economy ofessentially slave labour under the convict system to the‘free’ society that eventually superseded it [4,5]. Formany decades into the twentieth century, the convictlegacy continued to haunt Tasmanian society and wasthe cause of extreme social anxiety. Tasmanians weredesperate to distance themselves from the ‘hated stain’of links to a convict past [6]. This anxiety was of suchintensity that people denied their relatives and con-structed fake genealogies in order to hide convictancestries, and a veneer of priggish, conservativerespectability papered over a deep-seated sense of socialinsecurity [7]. The result was a society that lacked theconfidence to challenge authority and to engage with‘unrespectable’ egalitarian, democratic or liberal poli-tical views. The political culture that developed was oneof paternalism, patronage and vested interest [7,8]. Itwas a culture untouched even by democratic institutionsbecause the preoccupation with respectability served tolimit the emergence of an intellectual discourse ofsufficient momentum to be politically significant. Wewould expect that this political culture of patronage andvested interest would be reflected in resource manage-ment practices in Tasmania and in the culture of itsresource management institutions, and indeed thistendency has been noted in regard to a number ofTasmanian industries [8–10].

It is in the context of this background, and of asynthesis of Olson’s theories on political economy andsociety, as outlined above, that we consider develop-ments in the management of Tasmania’s rock lobsterfishery.

3. Tasmania’s rock lobster fishery

3.1. Overview

Tasmania’s rock lobster fishery is based on thesouthern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsii). With annualcatch valued in Australian dollars (AU$) at approxi-mately AU$45 million, it is second only in value to thestate’s abalone fishery (AU$63 million). It has a longertradition than the abalone fishery but has followed thetrend set in that fishery towards management by ITQand property rights. The rock lobster fishery has beenmanaged by input controls for over a century and bylimited entry since the late 1960s. ITQ based manage-ment was introduced in 1998.

The commercial rock lobster catch of around 1500tonnes per year is harvested using baited pots. There arenow about 240 vessels in the fleet, down from about 320

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prior to the introduction of the quota managementsystem (QMS) in 1998. Vessels are mostly between 6 and26 m in length, each working between 15 and 50 pots.Recreational fishing for rock lobster is also an im-portant cultural tradition for many Tasmanians. Re-creational fishing licences cost a base fee of AU$31.50plus an additional AU$5.25 for each endorsement fordive, pot or ring use. Approximately 9700 recreationalpot licences, 4800 dive licenses and 2300 ring licences areissued each year. The number of recreational licencesissued has increased since introduction of the QMS.Recreational fishers may use a combination of methodsand gears. Pot fishers are limited to one pot and if theyhave obtained the additional endorsements, may alsodive for lobster, and use up to four baited lift netsknown as ‘‘rings’’. Divers may use compressed air butno implements other than a gloved hand may be used tocapture lobsters. A daily bag limit of five lobsters appliesto all recreational fishers and the catch must be markedby tail clipping and may not be bartered or sold.Penalties for infringements of the rules are quite severe.Minor infringements may incur on the spot fines ofAU$100–200. Fines for more serious offences can totalseveral thousand dollars and there are provisions forcustodial sentences in extreme cases.

3.2. History of the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery

The commercial rock lobster fishery had its origins inthe early years of European settlement. The fishery hasbeen formally managed since at least the early 1880swhen, following a Royal Commission of Inquiry [11],laws to regulate it were introduced [12,13]. Regulationsincluded the establishment of a minimum size limit of‘12 in’ (294 mm) total length [13, p. 3]. This regulation,with slight variation over the years, has effectively beenretained to the present day, and the current size limit is acarapace length of 110 mm for male and 105 mm forfemale lobsters. Over the years this has proven to be aneffective conservation measure, protecting the fisheryfrom biological overfishing [12, p. 34, 14, p. 11]. Seasonalclosures and various other regulations have also beenused to manage the fishery since the 1880s [13, pp. 3–6].

In 1883 Tasmanian fishers were limited to the fairlyinefficient, labour intensive technology of workingbaited lift nets or ‘rings’ from sail and oar poweredvessels [11, p. xii]. In the 1880s it was suggested that theuse of baited pots might increase the productivity of thefishery [11, p. xv], but Tasmanian fishers opposed theintroduction of pots because they were considered to bedamaging to the fishery and would cause a depletion ofthe beds [13, p. 3], the argument being that lost potswould continue to trap lobsters or ‘‘ghost fish’’ [15].Opposition to pots may also have been motivated by thedesire of Tasmanian fishers to exclude ‘outsiders’ whocrossed Bass Strait from the state of Victoria. The latter

needed large sea-going vessels to handle the hazardousseas of Bass Strait and these vessels were also moresuitable than small coastal craft for fishing pots. In 1902the use of pots in Tasmanian waters was expresslyprohibited [13, p. 3]. Nevertheless, fishers from Victoriacontinued to use them and defy the regulations, and theyextended their activities down the east coast as northernwaters were depleted [13, p. 3]. The authorities appear tohave been unable or unwilling to prevent them.

In 1905 there was a change in policy and regulated useof pots was permitted for northern Tasmanian waters(north of latitude 401380S). In 1913 this was extended toinclude the east coast fishery (waters north of latitude421210S) and in 1925 pot use was extended to allTasmanian waters with the exception of the DerwentEstuary, the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and Storm Bay[13, pp. 3–5]). There was continued opposition to theintroduction of pots by the Tasmanian ‘ring fishers’[13, p. 5, 16]. These traditional fishers accustomed toworking from small vessels close to shore weredisadvantaged. Many lacked the capital to obtain avessel suited to the pot fishery and their viability wasthreatened by competition from the more powerfultechnology. The use of pots across the fleet increasedslowly, from 15% of vessels in 1925 to 37% in 1939. Theslow adoption of pots was linked to the restricted size ofmany vessels in the fleet, the cost of the pot licence fee,and the preference of many fishers for the traditionalmethod [13, p. 10]. Pot use was regulated according tovessel size, with larger vessels permitted to use propor-tionately more pots than smaller ones, up to a maximumof 30 pots for the largest vessels in the fleet [13, p. 6]. Thetransition from the ring fishery to the more capital-intensive pot fishery continued and marked the begin-ning of the trend towards greater capitalisation of thefishery. Traditional inshore fishers who lacked access tocapital were gradually marginalised.

After the wartime disruption of 1939–1945 theindustry enjoyed a boom period. Post war reconstruc-tion programmes and low interest loans assisted manyto enter the fishery. New technology, including syntheticrope, echo-sounders and reliable diesel motors, greatlyboosted fishing efficiency, while advances in refrigeratedtransport gave the Tasmanian fishery access to lucrativemarkets for lobster-tails in the United States [17, p. 5].Prior to the 1960s, entry was limited to qualifiedskippers with access to the necessary capital to purchasegear and a boat of adequate size to qualify for the use ofpots. This was still essentially an open-access fishery, butthe situation was not to last.

3.3. First steps toward enclosure

The move to a limited entry fishery began in 1967when the number of licences was capped at 420. Thepurpose of this move was to protect the incomes of the

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established operators from competition by additionalentrants to the fishery; it was not motivated by concernover the sustainability of stocks [12, p. 19, 13, p. 7]. Yet,rather than acknowledge that the measures were merelya service to established interests, government andindustry conspired to convince the public that themeasures were for conservation purposes.

Following limited-entry there was some growth incapacity as smaller operators were able to upgradevessels and so increase their pot entitlements up to the 40pot limit that applied at that time. Then in 1972the number of pots in the fleet was capped at a total of10507 [13, p. 7]. The number of licences was graduallyreduced in the following years as some operators retiredand pots were amalgamated into fewer, though larger,holdings. Transfer of licences and pots was permittedwithin a few years and a market in fishing entitlementssoon developed. Thus, rights of access to the fishery,which had originally been established as a privilege,began to be transformed into a form of tradableproperty.

Limiting entry did not prevent the growth of effort inthe industry. Licence holders invested in bigger boatsand better equipment [18, p. 77] and the progressiveincrease in the price of lobsters encouraged fishers towork longer and harder than before as they competedwith each other for larger shares of the resource towhich they jointly enjoyed privileged access. The ‘‘fish-ing power’’ of the fleet continued to increase due tovarious technological improvements, the introduction ofsatellite navigation systems in the early 1990s beingparticularly significant.

In addition to technological improvements, thefinancial efficiency of fishing effort also grew. Thiswas due to a significant price increase for theproduct from AU$10/kg in the mid 1980s to AU$30/kg in the mid 1990s, a consequence of the developmentof a live, air-freight, export market to Asia [19].Regulation also favoured increasing fishing efficiency.In 1960, for example, the maximum per vessel potlimit was raised from 30 to 40 and the pot allowancefor smaller vessels in the fleet was also raisedproportionately.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s there was growingconcern about overfishing, both within the industryand in government. Biological sustainability was notthe major issue. The concern was essentially abouteconomic overfishing. Resource rent was beingdissipated through excess fishing effort as fisherscompeted in a classic race to ‘catch the fish beforesomebody else did’. Rent dissipation by excess effortlimited profits and constrained the potential for increasein the capital value of fishing entitlements. On the otherhand the ‘excess’ effort was the basis of employment formany skippers, deck hands and other suppliers of fishingrelated inputs.

3.4. Rock lobster biology and catch statistics

In spite of a significant growth of fishing effort overthe past century, annual production from the fisheryremained remarkably consistent. Catch has variedbetween 1000 and 2000 tonnes since the potfishery became established in the 1930s and therehas been no readily discernible trend [20, p. 64].While effective fishing effort increased significantlyover this time, the fishery was not seen to be indanger of collapse. Until the 1990s the managementposition was that: ‘‘so far as conserving the stock isconcerned fishing effort need not be controlled’’[14, p. 11]. Conservation of the breeding stock wasprovided by a minimum size limit. In lobster fisheriesthat use baited pots with escape gaps and observean appropriate size limit, effort can in theory begreatly increased without affecting biologicalproductivity. Productivity may even benefit, if foodsupply is a limiting factor, from the extra feedingprovided by the bait that is used in excess fishing effort,although other factors, such as physical damage causedto undersized fish during handling and release, mayincrease mortality.

While curbing effort may not be necessary toprevent biological stock collapse, it is the key toraising catch per unit effort and producing ef-ficiency gains that would yield more resource rentor profit. Under heavy fishing pressure the abundanceof fish of legal harvest size is reduced as this partof the population is fished down and the catch perunit effort, which relates to the abundance of ‘size’fish, is reduced. Effort reduction allows rebuildingof the harvestable stock of ‘size’ fish and increasescatch per unit effort. However, an effect of thisefficiency gain is to redistribute economic benefitsaway from labour and other inputs of fishingeffort, to capital owners of access rights to thefishery. These owners became major beneficiaries ofincreasing resource rent capture after the QMS wasintroduced.

Detailed understanding of many of the factors thataffect lobster population ecology is still quite limited butexperience suggests that, as long as an adequatebreeding population is maintained, the actual abun-dance of lobsters has little direct correlation with futurerecruitment to the fishery. Environmental factors linkedto cycles affecting weather patterns and ocean currentsappear to be more important [21]. Biological considera-tions have generally not played a dominant role indriving policy. However, the rhetoric of conservationhas frequently been used to justify policies that primarilyserve the economic interests of particular stakeholders.Questions of allocation may drive policy, but conserva-tion concerns provide a powerful source of morallegitimacy.

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3.5. Economic considerations

The economic performance of the fishery has periodi-cally been a cause of management and industry concernand there have been several economic surveys of theindustry conducted over the years, often accompanyingmoves toward a change in policy. In the mid 1960s, forexample, an economic survey [17, pp. 45–47] found thatthe industry was economically ‘marginal’ and supportedthe change to limited entry.

Following the move to limited entry and the devel-opment of a market for fishing entitlements based on‘pots’, the market price of pots was recognised as a goodindicator of the economic performance of the fishery[22]. At that time the market value of licences, atAU$4000 per pot attached to the licence, was found tobe justified by the economics of the industry (i.e. newentrants paying this price of entry would be economic-ally marginal).

In 1991, in the lead-up to debate over the introductionof ITQ based management, the economic ‘‘viability’’of the fishery was again raised as a matter of concern.By this time the price of pots had risen to AU$6000.This indicated that the economic return per pothad increased, raising the price that fisherswere prepared to pay for access entitlements. However,a government study [23] based on calculations ofthe internal rate of return, a measure of the performanceof investment capital in the industry, found theindustry to be a marginal prospect for investment.This is not surprising since an increase in the economicsurplus produced in the fishery would be reflectedin an increase in the capital value of pots andan increase in the cost of entry. While the increasedprice of pots indicated that the fishery was producingmore resource rent than before, pointing to bettereconomic performance according to this measure,the economic analysis based on internal rate ofreturn suggested that the industry was in economicdecline. To address this economic ‘crisis’, the adoptionof ITQ based management was advocated with therelaxation of efficiency constraining input controls. Itwas noted that Tasmania could choose to have a largeand inefficient fleet or a smaller efficient one, but it wassuggested that the fishery and coastal communitiesassociated with it would continue on a course of gradualdecline unless management action was taken to ratio-nalise the industry and make it more efficient byreducing operational costs [23].

An argument could have been made for the oppositeconclusion, that the decline in these regional economieshas been associated with reduced local employment inthe fishery due to previous rationalisation and reductionin the size of the fleet. Further gains in fishing efficiency,far from reversing the trend, could be expected toexacerbate the decline in regional economies. Never-

theless, this economic analysis was used to supportproposals for further rationalisation of the fishery inorder to promote efficiency in terms of increased rentproduction.

4. Introduction of the quota management system

The decision to introduce a QMS for the fishery wasadopted in 1995 following a ballot of licence holders inwhich 53% of primary votes favoured a quota manage-ment system [18, p. 21]. Only licence holders, the ownersof property rights relating directly to the resource, wereincluded as ‘‘stakeholders’’ in the ballot. Other fishers,skippers, deck hands and those who leased rather thanowned licences were not consulted.

4.1. The draft management plan

Once the decision had been made to adopt aQMS, several years were required to finalise arrange-ments, particularly those relating to allocation ofthe total allowable catch (TAC) among licence holders.The Government’s draft management plan releasedin 1997 [18] proposed that a total allowable catchfor the fishery be set, based on an annual stockassessment. This TAC was to be allocated on anequal per pot basis among the total of 10,507 potsattached to the 320 licences in the fleet. The preferencefor per pot allocation acknowledged pots as thetraditional unit of tradable property in the fishery, andthe basis of past investment or ‘stakeholding’ in theindustry. Quota units were to be tradable and thenumber of pots allowed per vessel increased by 25% toallow for amalgamation of holdings and the restructur-ing of the industry toward fewer, more efficient vessels.The maximum number of pots that could be fished fromthe larger vessels in the fleet would increase from 40 to50. These additional pots would have to be bought fromother licence holders out of the limited number of 10,507pots in the fleet.

This proposed method of allocation of theTAC disadvantaged the ‘big catchers’ in the fleet.Many objected to the QMS altogether, and thoughtthat allocation of quota on an equal per pot basis wasunfair. They believed that quota allocation shouldreflect catch history whereby the traditional big catchersin the fleet would be allocated more quota to reflect pastoperational patterns. They lobbied hard, and inresponse to their concerns, Tasmania’s Upper Houseof Parliament, The Legislative Council, conducted aSelect Committee Inquiry into the Tasmanian rocklobster fishery [12].

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4.2. The select committee report

The Select Committee found that the fishery was notin danger of imminent collapse but that a reduction ineffort and catch were necessary to avoid a gradualdecline [12, p. 6]. Efficiency gains as a resultof technological improvements over past decadeswere clearly identified as the major causes leading tooverfishing and overcapacity [12, pp. 47–57]. The linkbetween the progressive increase in the market price oflobster over past decades and overfishing was also made.These issues were clearly identified in the report ascauses of the problem, but the recommendationscontained nothing to address them. On the contrary,the report recommended further reduction in efficiencyconstraints by raising the maximum number of pots pervessel from 40 to 60 [12, p. 10].

The Select Committee Report recommended that theintroduction of a QMS be delayed. It also suggested thatallocation of quota should recognise catch history. Thismethod of allocation, while clearly in the interests of thebig catchers in the fishery, challenged the establishedposition of the pot as the unit of ‘‘property’’ in thefishery.

4.3. The Nixon Report

At the time that the management plan was beingdebated, The Nixon Report, commissioned by theAustralian Commonwealth Government to providebroad ranging advice to both the State and Common-wealth on matters of Tasmanian economic policy,included a section advising on management of the rocklobster fishery [24]. The Nixon Report recommendedthat the existing investment in pots be bought back bythe Tasmanian Government, the cost of the buy-back tobe paid for by subsequent allocation of quota by tender.It also recommended that, in the interests of efficiency,remaining input controls, including the pot/vessel limits,that had historically been the foundation of conserva-tion and management of the fishery, be abolished [24, p.186]. For various reasons relating to party politics, andrelations between the State and National Governments,the Nixon Report received little support in Tasmaniaand it was ignored.

4.4. Discussion of management proposals

In terms of their vision for the future of the industry,the Draft Management Plan, the Select CommitteeReport and the Nixon Report all shared the manage-ment goal of increasing efficiency, viewed in terms of theproduction of profit or resource rent. Achieving thisgoal implied a reduction in the number of vessels andpeople employed in the industry. If the biomass of fishabove the size limit could be rebuilt, the catch per unit

effort should increase, and less effort would be requiredto harvest the total allowable catch. The reduction ofsome input controls, notably the limit on the maximumnumber of pots per vessel, would also result indirectly inless employment in the fishery as pots would beamalgamated onto fewer vessels and fewer crew wouldbe needed.

Where the three positions differed was in their tacitsupport for the interests of particular groups ofstakeholders. The Nixon Report’s recommendationswould have captured a capital gain for government.The Draft Management Plan, in advocating quotaallocation on an equal per pot basis, favoured theinterests of the majority of the fleet who typically landedless than the 150 kg/pot that they would be allocated.The Select Committee Report, in favouring allocationbased on catch history, favoured the minority of big-catchers in the fleet. Here the argument was primarilyabout how the ‘cake’ should be divided among licenceholders. The capital asset value of fishing entitlements(pots being converted to quota units) would besupported and likely to increase as a consequence ofefficiency gains leading to increased rent productionfrom the fishery. This benefit to licence holders would,however, come at a cost to other sectors of society.Opportunities for employment in the industry would bereduced and the cost of entry for future generations offishers would increase due to the increased cost ofbuying or leasing quota units. Prior to the introductionof the QMS a socio-economic impact study forecast thatthe number of deck-hands employed in the industrywould be halved [25, p. xii].

There was no serious consideration given to manage-ment options that would maintain or increaseemployment in the industry. The productivity of thefishery is limited by the biological constraints of rocklobster ecology. The total value of the fishery hasprogressively increased in recent decades as themarket price for lobster has risen. The industry todaycould sustainably generate a higher income, adjustedfor inflation, than it has in recent years. This incomecould support more people in employment than theindustry employed in the past. The TasmanianGovernment [23, p. 16] and the Select Committee[12, p. 20] recognised that there were options. Tasmaniacould have a large fleet maximising employmentand lifestyle opportunities, each limited to a lowannual catch, or a more ‘‘efficient’’ smaller fleetproducing more economic surplus. However, all propo-sals favoured managing the fishery to reduce employ-ment and increase efficiency in terms of rent production.In doing so they all favoured the interests of rent-seeking sectors of society at the cost of reducedemployment opportunities in the fishery and adverseoutcomes could be predicted for regional economies andsocial equality generally.

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The eventual resolution, arrived at after muchdebate and negotiation, was a management plan forthe fishery implemented in March 1998 [26,27], whichessentially followed the intentions of the Draft Manage-ment Plan but included some concessions to thehistorically big catchers in the fleet by incorporatingan element of catch history in the initial allocation ofquota [28].

5. Effects of the quota management system

5.1. The trend toward investor control

Four years on from the introduction of the QMSsome of its effects are becoming apparent. There hasbeen a dramatic increase in the market price of quotaunits. From the 1970s, when pots/units were traded forless than AU$1000, their market value increased toAU$4000 in 1987, AU$6000 in 1991, AU$10,000 in1997, prior to the introduction of the QMS, and by2002, after the system had been in place for 3 years, thevalue of lobster quota units exceeded AU$25,000. Thevalue of 40 quota units, equivalent to the former ‘‘full’’40-pot licence package, is now in excess of AU$1million. There is a trend toward increased ownership ofquota units by non-fishing investors and increasedownership by non-Tasmanians [29]. The high cost ofquota units has now made it almost impossible for fish-workers without capital to work their way up fromdeck-hand to skipper, to eventually acquiring accessrights and becoming owner-operators [29], the pathfollowed by many in the past. The separation betweencapital and labour is becoming increasingly entrenched.Ownership of property in the form of quota units isincreasingly providing power over dependent suppliersof contract labour.

The total market value of quota units now exceedsAU$250 million. This reflects the capitalised value of theright by quota owners to claim approximately AU$20million in annual rent from the fishery. Nominally theresource remains publicly owned and managed by theGovernment of Tasmania on behalf of the Tasmaniancommunity. But the strength of vested interest that hasbecome established as a result of past managementpolicies, and the priority the legal and political systemsgive to promoting the financial interests associated withprivate property, means that government is severelyconstrained in how it manages the fishery. Thisconstraint means that management of the fishery mustcontinue to serve the rent-seeking interests that havebecome established, at the expense of the broader publicinterest that would be better served by a widerdistribution of the resource wealth.

A new management environment is emerging withgreater involvement of lobbyists, lawyers, accountants,

and brokers of fishing entitlements. Unit ownersare increasingly influenced by financial interest,rather than by identification with the values ofindustry traditions and sympathy with the concernsand interests of fishworkers. There is an ongoingpush by the industry to further ‘liberalise’ the marketfor quota units in order to increase their value. It isnow seeking to remove the stipulation that quotaunits be attached to licence packages, and to allowsingle units to be held [30]. Currently a minimumof five units may be held and they must be attachedto a licence package. (An unanticipated developmentis that the limited number of licences have nowacquired a market value of about AU$50,000, indepen-dent of any quota units that may be attached.) One canexpect that there will be ongoing efforts to promotemore regulatory changes that will contribute to furtherincrease in the value of property rights associated withthe fishery. Lip-service may be paid to socio-economicconcerns and the intergenerational inequities thatdisadvantage the next generation of fishworkers. Butbeyond the rhetoric, the industry is not willing to allowany measures that will reduce the present value offishing entitlements, or limit the potential for furtherincrease.

5.2. Government perspective

The conventional view of management of the fisheryand the introduction of the QMS is that it has been asuccess. Fishing effort has been reduced and the value ofcapitalised fishing entitlements has increased. A govern-ment perspective on developments in the fisheryexpresses little concern about social impacts andreduced employment opportunities [29]. On the con-trary, further rationalisation is promoted on the basisthat this is the key to increased profitability. It is alsoargued that the cost of an effective enforcement regimein a fishery with strong property rights is likely to behigher if there are more fishers [29].

The strong investor security that is provided by theQMS is noted [29] and there is recognition that thisfactor, and further anticipated regulatory measures, willcontinue the trend toward investor control of the fisheryand further reduce the opportunity for fishworkers toacquire access rights. There is acknowledgement that thetrend away from an owner-operator fishery to one ofabsentee landlords and contract harvesters will meanthat the property-rights to the fishery will exert littledeterrence to illegal activity on the part of those activelyworking in the fishery; they, after all, have no stake inthe fishery [29]. The government’s role as enforcer of theproperty rights regime is emphasised and the value offishing entitlements is explicitly linked to the effective-ness of enforcement. The likelihood that the governmentwill seek to increase the enforcement regime, the costs to

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be passed on to the industry, is clearly foreshadowedhere.

The new management environment is one in whichgovernment and property rights holders engage in amixture of collaboration and contest. They collaborateto increase the production of resource rent from theexploitation of labour and natural resources in thefishery, and they contest with each other over distribu-tion of the spoils. This is a contest between mutualdependents. The state depends on the property-rightsmechanisms to produce an economic surplus from thefishery to which it can claim a share. And owners offishing entitlements are dependent on the state, whichmaintains exclusive, legitimate authority to enforce andprotect their property rights. Inequality and socialtensions with the potential to pose a threat to propertyrights serve to maintaining the importance of the state’srole of enforcement and so maintain the dependency ofproperty owners on the state.

Other actors are also drawn in to the rent-seekingcontest. These include politicians, fishery managers,biologists and enforcement officers, as well as brokers,lawyers and accountants, and also, it must be admitted,academic researchers. Many are associated with publicinstitutions and are subsidised by public finances. Therhetoric of public interest is often the currency ofarbitrage between these contesting groups, and environ-mental, socio-economic, and economic efficiency issuesare raised when convenient to exert leverage duringmanagement discussions which, though this is seldommade explicit, are to a degree about the distribution ofresource rent among these groups.

5.3. Implications for sustainability and social and

economic development

It is not difficult to make a case that the evolution ofregulation in the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery fitsOlson’s theories [2] about the trend towards dominationby rent-seeking interests. The retarding effects of rent-seeking activity on economic development and generalprosperity has been well established. Matthiasson [3]discusses the problems associated with rent-seeking andresource wealth in relation to Iceland’s fisheries and it isreasonable to expect that there will be similar impactsassociated with the management trends we have noted inTasmania’s fisheries.

There are costs associated with the non-productiveaccounting and policing activities that the QMSrequires, and also opportunity costs associated withthe management system’s constraints. A less restrictedsystem of management might allow the development ofmore diverse, creative and productive ways to use theresource, yielding greater economic and other well-beingbenefits. In some regions, for example, the fishery mightproduce greater wealth from value-adding and multi-

plier effects if it were managed to promote tourism andrecreational fishing, rather than ‘economically efficient’commercial fishing with an emphasis on rent production[20, pp. 71–74].

Perhaps the greatest concern about the implications ofthe QMS for the broader issue of sustainability relates toits distributional effects. We recognise that the produc-tivity of the resource is limited by biological constraints.Leaving aside the possibility of increasing the value ofthis productivity by using it in ways that yield greaterwell-being benefits in addition to its commodity value,and assuming the commodity value is the same whetherit is harvested by a property-rights, rent producingfishery or by an equal-access rent dissipating (orredistributing) one, what then is the net benefit tosociety of greater economic efficiency in terms ofrevenue production? It will not increase the productionof wealth, and rent not dissipated in wages in a labour-intensive, efficiency-constrained fishery, can instead bedissipated in profits and rents in a property-rights,revenue appropriating fishery. Economic efficiency is amatter of perspective. A significant economic effect ofmanaging to produce rent is the distribution of thewealth produced in the fishery away from people whowork in the fishery and away from their communities, tothe capital based property owners of the fishery andultimately into the pool of global capital. In a globaleconomy, with freedom of capital movement, economicsurplus generated from the fishery can go anywhere inthe world, just as wealth from anywhere can buy controlover part of the industry. The only wealth from thefishery that can be confidently retained, at least in thefirst instance, is that portion that is ‘‘dissipated’’ in localcontent fishing costs. Economic analysis that discountsthis and believes that profit and rent represents the onlyvalid measure of the economic benefit of the fishery doesnot reflect the perspective of local communities. Thereare, of course, individuals and occupations at local, stateand national level that gain relative advantage fromparticipating in the consolidation and export of wealthfrom a region in the service of global economic interests.

The foregoing discussion focuses on the distributionof wealth out of the community, but this may be lessimportant than the effect of promoting wealth inequal-ity within it. We have already noted that the inequalitycaused by the QMS means that fishworkers have littleincentive to protect the resource. Many in localcommunities might be better off if illegal fishingredistributed the wealth more evenly, or if overfishingor environmental deterioration reduced the productionof surplus wealth or rent that sustains the advantage ofthose with economic power over them. Jealousy andresentment are natural human responses to inequality.Such a situation is not conducive to maintaining,throughout the community, a commitment to sustain-ability.

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There is a link between social equality and the abilityof a society to achieve environmental requirements forsustainability. A systems-analysis perspective suggeststhat sustainable fisheries are associated with sustainable,functional communities [1,31]. Those characterised byinequality, productivity-sapping competitiveness, dis-unity, and other attributes of social dysfunction lackthe necessary entrenchment of values and institutionalmechanisms essential to successfully implementingsustainable patterns of use in fisheries and of otherenvironmental resources. The growth of inequality insociety can be expected to undermine democraticprocesses, civic cohesion and the civic commitment ofdecision-makers. Management of fisheries by propertyrights mechanisms is not only reflective of the poordevelopment of the essential characteristics for sustain-ability in Tasmanian society but it also contributes tomaintaining them because resources are distributed inways that increase the strength of established powerstructures and interests.

Hypothetically, one can consider different manage-ment scenarios for the Tasmanian rock lobster fishery.In practice, policy-makers are restricted in what they cando, being largely bound by the legacy of past policies,which have entrenched and strengthened vested interestsand greatly reduced the ongoing powers of governmentto regulate the fishery for the public benefit. Theimperative to maintain the market value of quota unitsconstrains management to an emphasis on resource rentproduction. Change would be resisted, not just by quotaholders, but also by other rent-seeking sectors with aninterest in the fishery.

6. Conclusion

We suggest that regulation of the Tasmanian rocklobster fishery has promoted privilege and exclusionwith respect to resource access, thereby exacerbatingwealth inequality and social division. Regulation hasfostered consolidation and inflation of the capitalmarket value of fishing entitlements at the expense ofa wider distribution of resource wealth. It has failed tooptimise the potential of resource use to contribute tothe broader well-being of Tasmanian society. We furthersuggest that the consequences of regulation constrainthe development within Tasmanian society and itsinstitutions of those values and structures essential tosocial and environmental sustainability.

The evolution of Tasmania’s rock lobster fisherymanagement system included a number of significantsteps. Landmarks among these were the introduction ofpots at the beginning of the twentieth century, the moveto limited entry in the 1960s and 1970s, and theadoption of the quota management system in 1998. Ineach case it could be argued that vested interests were

served and that broader principles of community equitywere compromised. The introduction of pots allowedgreater capitalisation of the fishery against the interestsand objections of many small-scale fishers. The move tolimited entry protected the established operators fromcompetition from potential new entrants. It is notablethat this step, which initially served the interests of aparticular group of fishworkers, was a cornerstone tothe eventual capitalisation of the fishery with theintroduction of ITQ. It demonstrates a seeminglyinevitable transformation of privileges into forms ofprivate property.

In the introduction to the paper we discussed howTasmania’s history and social and political developmentproduced institutions and a resource managementculture characterised by patronage and vested interest.It is plausible to attribute the evolution of managementof the rock lobster fishery, in which vested interests havebeen served and public well-being compromised, to thisresource management culture. Comparisons may also bemade with other jurisdictions that have introduced ITQbased systems. For example, in South Africa under theapartheid system, ITQ systems were used in fisherymanagement with the deliberate intent of maintainingcontrol over resource wealth in order to support theperpetuation of racially based social inequality [32]. InNew Zealand ITQ in fisheries management is viewed insome quarters as ‘‘part of a particular political andsocial agenda’’ that has led to the exclusion of small-scale and independent fishermen from fisheries whichhave fallen increasingly under the control of large, profitseeking corporations [33]. In Iceland concerns have beenexpressed about the effects of ITQ based managementon social equality and economic development [3,34,35].It is notable that in Tasmania there has been littledisinterested public opposition to what was essentiallythe enclosure and privatisation of valuable publicresources. Nor have objections been raised to theseresource management policies from public institutionsconcerned about their implications for broader issues ofsocial equity and regional economic development. Thislack of objection to the dominance of vested interests inthe management of public resources supports observa-tions of poverty of civic commitment in Tasmania’spolitical and resource management culture, a povertythat has serious implications for broader issues ofsustainability.

ITQ based management, it must be noted, has alsobeen adopted in jurisdictions such as Norway andIceland, which are widely regarded as socially progres-sive, egalitarian, democratic and committed to soundenvironmental policies and civic values. In thesecountries there have been strong campaigns against theprivatisation of fishery resources, but in spite of this,vested interests seem to prevail [34,36]. As ITQ isadopted in a growing number of jurisdictions one might

G. Phillips et al. / Marine Policy 26 (2002) 459–469 467

conclude that Tasmania’s resource management cultureis not unique but is perhaps only a version of a commonpattern. One might also suggest that a history of social,economic and political repression, which we argue hascontributed to the development of Tasmania’s resourcemanagement culture, is also reflective of a rather morecommon than an exceptional history of social experiencefor humankind. Or it may simply be that even the mostegalitarian and well-governed societies find it difficult toresist vested interests and the pressures of political andeconomic globalisation. But promoting sustainabilitymay require that these pressures and interests beresisted. It is clear that this becomes increasinglydifficult the more entrenched vested interests become.This provides a strong argument against adoptingfishery management policy that promotes privilege andexclusion and leads to the establishment of privateproperty rights over public fishery resources. Alternativepolicies that promote social equity and achieve con-servation by mechanisms other than property rights mayultimately be more successful in making progresstowards sustainability.

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