Fishermen facing the commercial lobster fishery licensing policy in the Canadian Maritime Provinces: origins of illegal strategies, 1960–2000

Illegal practices of marketing licences and holding multiple Lobster licences have been developed through time by fishermen in the Maritimes Provinces of Canada. The consequences of these practices have an impact on fishing activity that interferes with management goals and efficiency and threatens social organisation of fishing community. This article shows their development through the back and forth movement between the building of limited entry policy and fishermenʹs responses to it since the introduction of limited entry to the Canadian lobster fishery in 1967. Recent changes to American limited entry policies in Massachusetts and the Maine have attempted avoided some of the problems experienced in Canada.