The role of property rights in the development of New Zealandʹs seafood industry

Since the establishment of New Zealandʹs quota management system in 1986 both property rights and institutional arrangements for managing wild fisheries and marine farming have continued to mature. Changes strengthening the commercial fisheries rights have encouraged individual transferable quota owners and marine farmers to voluntarily organise into associations to better manage fisheries resources. These associations are placing increasing emphasis on the co-management of the productive capacity of the marine ecosystems. However, barriers remain to the widespread uptake of co-management arrangements, such as poorly defined rights for non-commercial fishers and marine farmers and/or poor integration of these rights with the management of wild fisheries, and legislative inflexibility and inappropriate political and bureaucratic intervention. Recognising these problems, the New Zealand Government recently released “Fishing for the Future”, an independent review of fisheries legislation and its administration. The review recommended a fundamental change from centrally managed fisheries to co-managed fisheries. This paper reviews the New Zealand experience with property rights-based management of fisheries and explores the present and future role of property rights on the co-management of New Zealandʹs fisheries.