Performance indicators for management of marine recreational fisheries

Existing measures for management of marine recreational fisheries fail to provide demonstrable improvements and arguably impede satisfaction of many wants of recreational fishers. We suggest that these circumstances are due to failure to understand the nature of the fishery and apply economic principles to its management, resulting in much of the fishery being effectively unpriced. Problems also result from failure to appreciate the implications of sustainability, including an appropriate time scale. We examine a possible approach to these aspects of fisheries management involving establishment of property rights. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.