Fisheries Success and Failure: The Case of the Bristol Bay Salmon Fishery
January 17, 2006 - Hilborn, Ray
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EmailJournal or Book Title: Bulletin of Marine Science
Volume/Issue: 78/3
Page Number(s): 487-498
Year Published: May 2006
Many of Alaska’s salmon fisheries are models of biological success, with management structures that have maintained biomass, stock diversity, and biological yield. At the same time the fisheries face severe challenges due to low product price, and have been declared formal “economic” disasters by state and federal agencies
in recent years. From many perspectives, these fisheries are in crisis. I explore how the governance system for Alaska’s Bristol Bay fishery has led to biological success and economic failure. I review a range of alternative governance structures, in place or being considered, that might provide for social and economic sustainability. I
also demonstrate that the basic biological principal that has guided management, maximum sustainable yield, is a serious impediment to social and economic sustainability.
Type of Publication: Journal Article
Publisher: University of Miami - Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
