Fishing effort control: could it work under the common fisheries policy?

The system of managing fisheries under the CFP using TACs and quotas has not been sufficiently effective, and is no longer adequate. Direct control of fishing effort has always been a possible alternative, but has not been implemented except in special cases because of the difficulties of measuring and comparing the fishing effort of different vessels and fishing gears, and ensuring fair sharing of the resources available. I suggest that both of these problems can be overcome by adopting a scheme based on uniform pro rata adjustments to individual vessel entitlements to fishing effort, based on track records, and thus also maintaining the important principle of relative stability. Such a scheme is well adapted to a system of regional management of the fisheries, could be effectively enforced using satellite monitoring, and should be seriously considered as an alternative to TACs and quotas in the CFP after 2002. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.