Fishing quota

Catch share is a fishery management system that allocates a secure privilege to harvest a specific area or percentage of a fishery's total catch to individuals, communities, or associations. Examples of catch shares are individual transferable quota (ITQs), individual fishing quota (IFQs), territorial use rights for fishing (TURFs), limited access privileges (LAPs), sectors (also known as cooperatives), and dedicated access privileges (DAPs).

Catch shares provide long-term secure privileges to participants and, in theory, an incentive for efficient, sustainable use of fish stocks. Actual outcomes in terms of efficiency and ecological sustainability are varied, based on design and implementation of the program.

Catch share programs generally fall into two categories. Quota-based programs, like ITQs, establish a fishery-wide catch limit, assign portions (or shares) of the catch to participants and hold participants directly accountable to stay within the catch limit.

Area-based programs, like TURFs, allocate a secure, exclusive area to participants and include appropriate controls on fishing mortality that ensure long-term sustainability of the stock. A combination of both quota- and area-based approaches has also been used.

The term "catch share" has taken root recently, but similar management systems providing secure and exclusive access to fishery resources have been in use for many years. Community-based management in Japan's near-shore fisheries dates back to feudal times, and modern individually-allocated catch share programs were first implemented by the state of Wisconsin in the early 1970s for important fish stocks in the Great Lakes. Also, Iceland and the Netherlands implemented catch shares for important stocks in the late 1970s.

The use of catch share programs worldwide has been expanding since the earliest implementations in the 1970s. Some countries, such as Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia, have made catch share programs the default management system.

The United States has implemented the vast majority of its catch share programs in the 21st century. In 2010, catch shares were implemented in the United States Northeast Multispecies fishery and in the United States Atlantic Sea Scallop fishery. In 2011, a catch share program was implemented in the Pacific Coast Groundfish Limited Entry Trawl fishery, which includes fishermen from the states of Washington, Oregon, and California.

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