The Market, Marx and Sustainability in a Fishery

Abstract

A management system of individual transferable quotas was introduced in the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery in 1998. The market for quota units has since become increasingly capitalised. Fishers without substantial wealth find it difficult to participate in this market. Instead, investors purchase quota units. Consequently, fishery managers are somewhat disillusioned with the hidden hand of the market and are seeking a different way to conceptualise what is happening in the fishery. Marx's writings on the hidden abode of production suggest one such way. I bring Marx's work together with quota management and the views of participants as an alternative way of framing these changes in the fishery.

Managing shark fishermen in southern Australia: A critique

“…In the first instance, outcomes of these kinds would require that management gave serious consideration to possible social consequences of existing and new plans. On this count, with respect to ITQ management, AFMA has paid little heed to an extensive literature that directs attention to actual or potential deleterious social impacts [45][46][47][48] and, further, explicitly appeals to a 1997 Federal Court decision and a 2003 review of fisheries policy to absolve itself of responsibility for the social consequences of decisions [38,49].…”

Nature's Materiality and the Circuitous Paths of Accumulation: Dispossession of Freshwater Fisheries in Cambodia

“…Such rethinkings are underway in the contexts of regulation theory (Bridge and McManus 2000), agro‐food studies (Goodman 2001; Mansfield 2003), political ecology (Walker 2005) and a broad array of social‐scientific modes of inquiry. Of particular relevance to my own concerns, emerging studies of the political economy and political ecology of fisheries within the geographical literature (eg Bradshaw 2004; Mansfield 2004a, 2004b; St Martin 2005; Symes and Crean 1995) detail the multiple ways that the biology and ecology of different fish species influence extractive sectors of the economy. However, these studies have overwhelmingly been oriented to, first, ocean and coastal fisheries and, second, advanced industrial societies (see Young 2001 for a notable exception).…”

Does ‘race to fish’ behaviour emerge in an individual transferable quota fishery when the total allowable catch becomes non‐binding?

“…The TSRLF is a single species fishery targeting the southern rock lobster, which is considered the premium of Australia's lobsters (Bradshaw ). The fishery is an important contributor to the Tasmanian economy, with a revenue of $65.2 million in 2009/10 (ABARES ) and an estimated 700 people directly employed in the commercial rock lobster fishing, processing and handling sectors in 2006/07 (van Putten and Gardner ).…”