Individual Transferable Fishing Quotas in Chile: Recent History and Current Debates

Artisanal and industrial fishing sectors in Chile require the consolidation of fishery management schemes that promote the rationalization of fishing efforts, adjusting them to scarcer fish stocks. We argue that a system based on Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) is the best available option, especially for the industrial sector. Individual assignments favor the coordination of collective solutions to rationalizing fishing efforts, while transferability promotes economically efficient solutions to the excessive fishing capacity problem. We propose an initial assignment of ITQs based on historical presence, conditioning the ITQ user-rights to annual payments that allow financing of the ITQs’ management and enforcement costs. We defend an initial assignment of ITQs as transitory user-rights, with a reasonably long period of validity (15-20 years). We argue that this favors the political viability of being able to continue perfecting the ITQs system in the future. We also propose to empower Artisanal Fishermen Associations, which be able to provide reliable proofs of having relevant local representation, with faculties for deciding on and administering the distribution and use (among their members) of the total quota assigned to them by the fisheries regulator. These self-governing faculties would include the possibility of allowing for transferability of individual quota allocations. Finally, we propose that artisanal fishermen have the legal ability to carry out transactions with industrial interests, so that some proportion of the industrial quota could be caught inside the first five miles (currently being a reserved zone for artisanal fishing), for example using artisanal vessels for these purposes. 1 The ideas expressed in this article exclusively represent the personal opinions of the author, therefore in no way do they represent the official position of institutions with which the author maintains contractual relations. Since the end of the year 2000, the author has participated as an advisor in regulatory matters for the Minister of Economics in Chile, including analysis of options for legislative reform in the fishing sector.