Opinion on the merits of rights-based management
regimes is divided among fishermen, fisheries managers,
politicians, academics, and environmentalists. Within a
single fishery, some operators strongly favor shifting to
a rights-based regime and other operators strongly
oppose such a move. Among academic experts, economists
generally favor the adoption of such systems for
their promise of greater efficiency and stronger conservation
incentives but other social scientists decry the
potential disruption of fishing communities by market
processes and the attrition of fishing jobs and livelihoods.
Some environmental groups, notably Environmental
Defense, advocate rights-based fisheries
management as consistent with their model of marketfriendly
environmentalism. Others, notably Greenpeace,
argue vehemently against it. These divisions are reflected
in the political arena. The US Senate, responding to
constituent concerns in some fishing states, used the
1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act to impose a moratorium
on the development of ITQ systems by any Fisheries
Management Council and on the approval of any ITQ
system by the National Marine Fisheries Service. A
recent committee report from the National Research
Council, Sharing the Fish, which attempted to examine
these controversies, generated only a carefully balanced
exposition of pros and cons, though the committee did
recommend that Congress rescind its moratorium [5].
Despite support from some senators, that recommendation
has not been adopted and the moratorium has
recently been extended.