 | Around the World in 80 Ideas |
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ENVIRONMENT 18: Stream of improvements Private fishing rivers and fishing rights The problem: neglected, over-fished waters In most countries, rivers and estuaries belong to nobody, so nobody has much interest in protecting them from pollution and neglect. But we would all prefer to see clean and well-maintained rivers, and sporting (and commercial) fishers rely on clean water for healthy fish stocks: what can be done? The solution: tradable use rights Do we need to put rivers under government control, or set up some US-style government-run Superfund to raise taxes and clean up the rivers? No, the solution is much simpler than that. Simply allow people to own (or have fishing rights over) rivers and estuaries. Then they have an interest in keeping the water clean and in curbing pollution. Examples: fishing, hunting, commerce Scotland is world-famous for its salmon streams, and has a large tourist industry based on sports fishing for salmon. This is not because Scottish salmon are somehow different or better than salmon elsewhere in the world (though the Scots insist this is so). Rather, it is because the rights to fish every inch of every river in Scotland is privately owned, and the owners have a powerful incentive to keep them clean and well-stocked, since they make a good business out of issuing permits to sports fishers. This system has prevailed in Scotland for centuries, both in rivers and in coastal waters. The owners can fish themselves, or sell on their rights to other fishers; and daily, weekly, monthly and annual permits are all common. Just as any landowner can exclude trespassers, so do the owners of fishing rights in Scotland have the legal power to exclude other fishers from their defined stretch of water. Visitors who buy permits from them can therefore be assured that they will have exclusive access for the duration of their permit. And these rights are jealously guarded. It has been said that in Scotland, while trespassing and poaching is not considered quite as serious as high treason, it comes close; and poachers are widely vilified. The result is that Scotland's famous salmon rivers like the Tay, Tweed, and Spey are well-maintained and not over-fished. Indeed, a few years ago the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Trust purchased a number of commercial rights and retired them, specifically to increase salmon stocks for the upstream sports fishing industry. Considerable expense is undertaken to conserve salmon stocks in Scotland's rivers, thanks to this clear ownership system. When a hydro-electric dam was built at the Highland town of Pitlochry, for example, an elaborate 'salmon ladder' had to be constructed alongside. This gentle cascade of water tanks allows the salmon to swim upstream and over the dam. Their energetic jumps from tank to tank has itself now become an important tourist attraction. A similar principle applies in Scotland to sports shooting rights. Again, landowners issue exclusive permits for the rights to shoot grouse, pheasants, and other game birds on their land, with the result that these stocks are well-conserved. Trees and other natural cover is maintained, and shooting is not allowed during the breeding season. So shooting rights too have become the basis of a thriving tourist industry. In England, the common law protects those who have the right to use rivers for recreation. In a celebrated postwar legal case, the Pride of Derby fishing club brought a legal action against the City of Derby, the state-run electricity board, and a commercial company, arguing that their discharged sewage, heated effluent, and industrial waste was damaging their fishing. The case went right up to the Court of Chancery, but the club's rights were upheld and the defendants had to change their operations. Today, the Anglers' Cooperative Association takes on polluters, and has handled over 1500 such cases since the 1950s, in some cases winning substantial damages which allow fishing clubs and landowners to restore their fisheries. In 2002, the Anglian Water company was found guilty of polluting a river and faced huge fines after fisherman Roy Hart initiated a private prosecution at Basildon Crown Court. The action upstaged the UK's £600 million-a-year Environmental Agency, which had yet to decide whether to prosecute. A few path-breaking schemes in Iceland and New Zealand have assigned coastal fishers rights to a sustainable quota which can be freely traded, with the result that stocks are reviving. Canada has a mixture of public and private ownership of salmon rivers. Indeed, the private ownership system has been a force for conservation for over 100 years. By contrast, virtually all state governments in the United States disallow the private ownership of streams, on the grounds that these should be held in public trust. The sad result is over-fishing and pollution, as governments give in to vested interests. An exception is the Yellowstone Valley in Montana: since the spring creeks there begin and end on private property, the public-trust rule does not apply. So owners sell permits to fly-fishers who come from all over the world to enjoy the sport. To protect their asset, owners limit livestock grazing near to the creeks and otherwise protect fish and wildlife. The same property-rights approach works in coastal waters too, with beneficial results all round. The lobster fishers of Matinicus Island in Maine, for example, maintain an area of nearly 80 square miles around the island, and control who will be accepted to fish there. They have no legal ownership of the area, since the sea is regarded in law as the 'commons'; but they overcome 'the tragedy of the commons' - neglect and over-exploitation - by assuming their own user rights over it. Outsiders are seen off: the local fishers may cut or remove their traps. This is, of course, entirely illegal, but it is also highly effective in terms of preserving the natural resource on which their lives depend. The result is that the local incomes of fishers in the area are nearly 40% higher than those of fishers in the unrestricted areas off the coast of Main. But this is not just because they keep out the competition: their fishing is also twice as productive. The islanders' assumption of user rights over their coastal waters has helped conserve stocks that, in many of the unrestricted coastal waters, have been completely fished out. Conclusion: property, not politicians It might sound good sense to focus the power of government on preventing pollution and conserving wildlife, but in reality this is much better left to private owners who have an interest in achieving those aims. Too often (as in the Pride of Derby case), government bodies are themselves the polluters, or give in to the vested interests - the industries that employ their voters, or the public which enjoys unrestricted (but ultimately damaging and fatal) access to these fragile natural resources. Those who depend on these resources are in a far better position than distant legislators to assess the actual costs imposed by pollution and over-use. And because they have something to lose - their recreation or their commercial returns from licensing other users - they are far more diligent in protecting them. For more information:
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Copyright 2002: Adam Smith Institute
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