Factions, Models and Resource Regulation: Prospects for Lowering the Maine Lobster Trap Limit

Abstract

One of the most important questions facing resource management is how to regulate industries exploiting natural resources. Currently there is an effort in the Maine lobster industry to get lower trap limits, which provides an opportunity to get detailed information on the political factors influencing legislation in an important and highly successful industry. In many industries, including the Maine lobster industry, many laws come in the aftermath of conflict between industry factions seeking laws to get distributional benefits. In the Maine lobster industry, the politics of getting lower trap limits are byzantine. Two factions have different models of the fishery, leading them to advocate different policies. The positions of people in each faction are very complicated. Those favoring a lower trap limit assume the industry is highly inefficient and that a lower trap limit would result in better catches per trap haul, lower costs of operations and higher profits. Some of those opposing a trap limit assume fishing more traps will lower profits; others assume it will raise profits. Those opposing lower trap limits offer five different sets of reasons for their viewpoint. To date, efforts to impose a lower trap limit have been blocked, but a number of factors could change the strength of the factions and tip the balance. In this industry, resource management policy is being made in an atmosphere in which different industry groups are pulling in different directions for complex sets of reasons.

Seafood Trade Routes for Lobster Obscure Teleconnected Vulnerabilities

“…In each case, these episodes were described as "crises" on account of the socioeconomic impacts (and general anxiety) that they caused fishers. Indeed, the stress associated with these price drops was so severe that it reportedly led to several outbreaks of violence among industry members (Acheson and Acheson, 2010). What ties these episodes together is that unforeseen trade dynamics-as opposed to a change in the status of the lobster fisheries alone-played a key role driving the change in price.…”

Economic diversity of Maine's American lobster fishery

“…For instance, some harvesters invest upwards of $300,000 in a fishing vessel, and opt to fish year-round (Dayton and Sun 2012). Prior studies in other fisheries have attributed the variation in vessel performance to the skills of the operator, with certain individuals who seem to be able to earn substantially more than others with similar vessels (Pascoe and Coglan 2002;Sharp et al 2004;Acheson and Acheson 2010). The observable physical attributes of the vessels in the fleet are also only one of the dimensions of the performance of a fishing operation (Squires 1987) and may not account for all of the variations in profit efficiency.…”

“…The choice of harvester business model may further be a reflection of the resource characteristic; productivity within a spatial area varies over time, with shifting of the spawning lobster stock observed and influenced by changing ocean conditions, Previous studies note a socio-cultural element to the Maine lobster fishery, which appears to operate in a fashion that is not economically optimal, especially when compared to other crustacean trap fisheries such as New Zealand and Australia, each of which have undergone significant policy changes designed to maximize economic yield as a primary management objective (Norman-López and Pascoe 2011; Reid et al 2013;Gardner et al 2015). Changes in fleet investment as well as changing ecological conditions pose challenges to fisheries managers, and it has been proposed that effort reductions could ensure the socioeconomic and ecological health of the Maine lobster fishery (Lobster Advisory Council 1999;Fogarty and Gendron 2004;Steinback et al 2008;Acheson and Acheson 2010), and improve fishing efficiency and economic 7 yield to offset eroding profits resulting from increased production input prices (fuel, wage, bait)…”