The Grand Banks Cod

The tragedy of the commons can be described as an economic theory by Garrett Hardin, which states that individuals acting independently and rationally according to each’s self-interest behave contrary to the best interests of the whole group by depleting some common resource.

A great example of the tragedy of the commons would be what happened in Canada with their fishing source. The harvest of cod was enormous and for many years seemed endless, but it did end abruptly in the 1990’s after an attempt by Canada to bring it back after a near breakdown in the 1970’s. In 1968 the cod catch from the Grand Banks was 810,000 tons, but in 1974 it was 34,000 tons.

There were many factors that lead to the depletion of the cod fish population in Canada. Part of the problem was the development of more effective methods for netting up codfish. When fishermen first began fishing in the banks they were only able to catch as many fish as their nets and tiny boats could catch and hold but with the creation of new technology such as bottom trawl nets, on boat refrigeration and larger boats the fishermen were able to catch record levels of cod. The dimensions of drift nets became enormous. Not only did these large nets haul in large numbers of fish but when lost they were devastating to the cod population.

Until 1977 the Grand Banks were part of the open ocean where the ships of any country could fish without limit  but in 1977 Canada along with many other nations of the world with coastal boundaries extended its national sovereignty to a 200 mile limit. This created the opportunity to manage and conserve the fish populations of the Grand Banks but in Canada they created subsidies which allowed the country to expand its own offshore fleet to exploit the gap left by the foreign ships.

Canadian fisheries experts advised their government that the imposition of proper catch limits would allow the cod population to recover. They set the limit of Cod at what they thought was the maximum sustainable yield which is a spot where you can take the most amount of fish with the population still being able to grow back. The quotas were set too high continually, so that the country could sustain their fishing market. Eventually the fishing market collapsed because there were no fish left and the population would not grow back.

What happened in Canada is an example of Tragedy of the commons because most fishermen in Canada were fishing from the same bank. They all received a large benefit from getting large amounts of fish at first. (The government subsidies that came from fisherman’s insurance etc.) The depletion of the fish population did not seem like a problem from the start because each fisherman only felt a small portion of the costs related to overfishing. The more the fishermen fished at the banks the less fish there were but the fishermen did not stop fishing because they were still reaping the benefits from the population of fish that was left. Because the fishermen and the government of Canada did not look at the bigger picture and what could happen if the fish population continued to decrease overtime, the fish population became unsustainable and the fish population continued to decline at drastic levels.  Two main problems with the Canadian banks were that the banks were open to all the fisherman (non-excludability) and no reason to cooperate. Because the fishermen and government did not listen to the fisheries experts this created a tragedy of the commons.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RE9PMwwaFc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5wR8Iu2Q00

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/news/no-fish-hunt-seals/history-of-the-grand-banks-cod/

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/grandbanks.htm

 

 

 

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