What is a catch share?

A catch share program allocates a secure privilege to harvest a specified amount of a fishery's total catch to an individual or group (groups can be community-based). Under a catch share program, managers establish a fishery-wide¹ catch limit, assign portions of the catch, or shares, to participants, and hold participants directly accountable to stay within the catch limit.

Catch shares are fundamentally different from other management approaches and have generally been implemented after a variety of other approaches are insufficient at meeting specific goals. Most commercial fisheries start as open access where anyone who puts in the effort is allowed to catch fish. As competition increases, managers often limit access through licensing of participants. When licenses do not effectively control fishing effort and catches, managers implement more and more effort-based regulations to control catches.

Examples of these regulations include limitations on the amount of catch allowed per trip, the size of vessel, fishing days and more. In many cases, these management efforts have not succeeded in maintaining stable fish populations or in promoting profitable, safe fisheries. As an alternative, over the past four decades many fisheries worldwide have implemented catch share programs.

By allocating participants a secure share of the catch, catch share programs give participants a long-term stake in the fishery and tie their current behavior to future outcomes. This security provides a stewardship incentive for fishermen that was previously missing or too uncertain to influence his/her behavior toward long-term conservation. Catch share programs align the business interests of fishermen with the long-term sustainability of the stock, and they provide more stability and predictability within a fishing year and over time.

Furthermore, catch share fishermen are held accountable for their share of the catch. They are simply not allowed to catch more than their share. And, if participants do exceed their shares, they must lease or buy additional shares in order to cover his/her overage, or they are subjected to a penalty which could include revocation of the privilege or stiff fines. By contrast, traditional fisheries management holds fishermen accountable to regulations that are not directly tied to the catch and do not necessarily limit the catch.

Today, over 520 unique species of fish are managed by catch shares in 35 countries worldwide. Catch shares are used by 18% of the world's total countries and 22% of the world's coastal countries. There are over 275 programs comprised of more than 850 catch share managed species units worldwide.²

For the purpose of this analysis and discussion throughout this document, a catch share is a management approach that allocates shares of the catch to specified entities, either individuals or groups. Most well-documented catch shares allocate shares to individuals, but there is growing interest in the use of group-allocated approaches such as Cooperatives, permit banks and Community Fishing Associations. In addition, most catch share programs are transferable, in which participants can buy, sell and/or lease shares. This market allows the fishery to internally adjust to changes in the catch limit and allows participants to enter and exit the fishery.

Managers, practitioners and academics debate whether area-based and tradable effort-based approaches qualify as catch shares. The debate centers on whether a catch limit is a required component of a catch share. The purpose of the Design Manual is to describe catch shares that have a catch limit.

Tradable effort-based programs and area-based programs without a catch limit may be effective approaches for managing certain fisheries, especially those in which it is difficult or prohibitively costly to identify a scientifically-based catch limit. See Appendix B: Managing Without a Catch Limit for more explicit discussion about species- and area-based catch shares without a catch limit and effort-based approaches.

Other common names for catch shares include: Individual Fishing Quotas, Dedicated Access Privilege Programs, Limited Access Privilege Programs, Statutory Fishing Rights, Quota Management System, Rights-based Fisheries Management and more.