Technology, Marine Conservation and Fisheries Management

by Michael De Alessi

De Alessi's article discusses the deleterious effects of mismanaged fisheries, which includes the over-extraction of and depletion of fish and other marine life. The article proposes that the cause of this tragedy is the lack of private ownership of the fish and their marine environment as a result of governmental regulation of fisheries. De Alessi suggests that government intervention impedes the progress and success of marine conservation efforts because it precludes the evolution of private property rights.

Enlargement of private property rights would increase fishery managers' incentives to promote marine conservation, which in turn, would stimulate tangential industries' interest in creating solutions and technologies which advance the same goal. Some of the technologies and solutions include: sonar, satellites, tagging, unmanned submersibles, artificial reefs, and aquaculture.

The article draws an analogy of the current fisheries management problem to the resource management challenge faced by the cattlemen of the American West who were forced to create private property solutions, such as branding and barbed wire fencing, in the absence of government intervention. Using this illustration, De Alessi concludes that if fishery managers are left to define and enforce a system of property rights themselves, technological innovation will be encouraged due to the managers' desire to secure their rights, which will ultimately further marine conservation goals.