Area-based programs, like TURFs, allocate a secure, exclusive area to participants and include appropriate controls on fishing mortality that ensure long-term sustainability of the stock.
The term "catch share" has taken root recently, but similar management systems providing secure and exclusive access to fishery resources have been in use for many years.
Community-based management in Japan's near-shore fisheries dates back to feudal times,[3] and modern individually-allocated catch share programs were first implemented by the state of Wisconsin in the early 1970s for important fish stocks in the Great Lakes.
[7] In 2011, a catch share program was implemented in the Pacific Coast Groundfish Limited Entry Trawl fishery, which includes fishermen from the states of Washington, Oregon, and California.
[8] Worldwide, there are nearly 200 catch share programs, used in 40 countries, to manage a wide variety of marine and freshwater species including finfish, sharks and crustaceans.
The theoretical framework showed that the common property nature of fisheries results in competition between individual operators to increase their share of the catch, which can ultimately lead to excessive capital, such as fishing vessels and gear, overfishing and resource wastage.
[10] Catch shares have been proposed as a potential solution for the common property challenges found in many fisheries and have typically been implemented after a variety of other approaches have failed.
[18] With improved certainty, catch shares have also extended season lengths by providing operators with a longer time period to harvest and the ability to coordinate fishing trips based on market conditions.
In specific programs, critiques largely focus on tradeoffs, which commonly involve changes in fleet capacity, employment, and aggregation of shares in the fishery.
[28] For example, the Bering Sea crab catch share program in the United States experienced a significant reduction in the number of participants and part-time jobs and is currently operated by fewer full-time positions.
[34][37] Critics have claimed that proliferation of catch share management is reflective of the increasingly strong link between the government and the private sector and that the programs are typically the result of special interest influence over legislation.