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Context and Challenges: The Limited ‘Success’ of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Fisheries Experiment, 1986–2016

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Fisheries, Quota Management and Quota Transfer

Part of the book series: MARE Publication Series ((MARE,volume 15))

Abstract

New Zealand’s quota management system (QMS) and ITQ system is now 30 years old and has its own highly developed literature. During the 1980s and 1990s this literature generally interpreted the ITQ experiment in positive terms: issues of allocation, equity and industrial performance were effectively addressed through the QMS/ITQ regime; the fisheries were well managed; and the policies resulted in economic growth. But since 2000 the literature has moved on from these issues of the past. Increasingly the regime is seen as being challenged by other developments, and no longer delivering expected economic results. QMS and ITQ are now regarded as useful and effective instruments of past policies but insufficient on their own for future fisheries management: they need to be buttressed by other fisheries management policies if environmental and economic expectations are to be met; and they need effective policing since the track record of enterprise behavior reveals that the firms are not committed to sustainable development of the fisheries but to obtaining rentier profits from their quota. New Zealand is understood as a special context with special challenges for fisheries management.

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Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the constructive comments of Richard Le Heron of The University of Auckland, Eugene Rees who is Senior Policy Analyst with the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries, and Springer’s referees.

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  1. Department of Geography, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany

    Gordon M. Winder

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Correspondence to Gordon M. Winder .

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  1. Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Germany

    Gordon M. Winder

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Winder, G.M. (2018). Context and Challenges: The Limited ‘Success’ of the Aotearoa/New Zealand Fisheries Experiment, 1986–2016. In: Winder, G. (eds) Fisheries, Quota Management and Quota Transfer. MARE Publication Series, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59169-8_4

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