SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Sept. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers said a fisheries management strategy called "catch shares" can help overcome the global collapse of fisheries.
Catch shares guarantee each shareholder a fixed portion of a fishery's total allowable catch, which is set each year by scientists. The shares can be bought and sold, much like stock shares in a corporation, researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and University of Hawaii said in Thursday in a release.
While nearly a third of open-access fisheries have collapsed, the number is only half that for fisheries managed under catch share systems, the report said.
"Under open access, you have a free-for-all race-to-fish, which ultimately leads to collapse," UC Santa Barbara scientist Christopher Costello said. "But when you allocate shares of the catch, there is an incentive to protect the stock -- which reduces collapse. We saw this across the globe. It's human nature."
