The role of property rights in the development of New Zealand's seafood industry

Since the establishment of New Zealand's quota management system in 1986 bo th property rights and institutional arrangements for managing wild fisheri es and marine farming have continued to mature. Changes strengthening the c ommercial fisheries rights have encouraged individual transferable quota ow ners and marine farmers to voluntarily organise into associations to better manage fisheries resources. These associations are placing increasing emph asis on the co-management of the productive capacity of the marine ecosyste ms. However, barriers remain to the widespread uptake of co-management arra ngements, such as poorly defined rights for non-commercial fishers and mari ne farmers and/or poor integration of these rights with the management of w ild fisheries, and legislative inflexibility and inappropriate political an d bureaucratic intervention. Recognising these problems, the New Zealand Go vernment recently released "Fishing for the Future", an independent review of fisheries legislation and its administration. The review recommended a f undamental change from centrally managed fisheries to co-managed fisheries. This paper reviews the New Zealand experience with property rights-based m anagement of fisheries and explores the present and future role of property rights on the co-management of New Zealand's fisheries. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.