Fisheries Management

Fisheries management under an Arctic regime would become an international matter, with a comprehensive legal regime that protects all fisheries in the area (there are currently exploitable gaps in the protected areas). This would discourage nations from treading on other nations’ fishing grounds. It would also reduce coordination problems, eliminating situations in which one nation establishes a sustainable quota but its neighbor does not and the fishery as a whole is overfished. Regional rather than national data on total fish catches would also allow experts to better monitor fishery health and to adjust fisheries policy accordingly. High seas fisheries management, as evidenced by overfished North Atlantic fishing grounds, has traditionally been highly ineffectual; in the Arctic, creating an international fisheries management regime would promote dialogue and reduce national tensions while simultaneously facilitating stronger overall fisheries practices.