Doctoral Dissertation Research: Quotas and Communities: Privatizing Access to Marine Resources in the North Pacific

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Market-based fishing quota policies have been shown to increase economic efficiency, but privatizing resource access rights in this way can limit other important social goals such as distributional equity. The most striking example of this in the North Pacific is the substantial loss of quota, and hence fishing rights, from small, remote, fishing communities. As similar trends have frequently resulted from tradable quota programs around the world, community protection provisions are often recommended components of fishing quota programs. One such program, recently implemented in the North Pacific, provides a unique opportunity to explore the factors that affect the success of community-based distributive policies. This dissertation research project in cultural anthropology will use the ten-year history of the North Pacific halibut and sablefish individual fishing quota fisheries to explore these distributive concerns, both with respect to individuals and communities. The project aims to understand the root causes for the loss of quota from small, remote, fishing communities, and predictors for the success of a newly implemented community quota program that is meant to alter such transfer patterns. This dissertation research contributes to the growing field of environmental anthropology, and will specifically add to scholarship concerning distributive equity and fairness, collective ownership and community-based resource management, and contemporary Native American communities.Broader Impacts: Understanding the distributive and sociocultural effects of privatizing access rights is a fundamental societal question that extends far beyond U.S. fisheries management. This research directly explores questions of resource access and ownership that can contribute to current debates concerning the privatization of public resources. More specifically, this research will provide practical information to resource managers about the outcomes of individual and community-based quota programs that can inform future policy that may better incorporate the goals of both resource and community sustainability. In addition the project advances the education of a young social scientist.