Territorial use rightsNimnaga. K

Use Rights Whenever a fishery is managed by

restricting who can have access to the fishery, how much fishing activity (fishing effort) individual participants are allowed, or how much catch each can take, those with such entitlements are said to hold use rights. Such use rights are simply ‘the rights to use’, as recognised or assigned by the relevant management authority (whether formal or informal).

Forms of Use Rights

access rights, which permit the holder to take part in a fishery (limited entry) or to fish in a particular location (territorial use rights or ‘TURFs’)

withdrawal rights, which typically involve quantitative (numerical) limits on resource usage, either through input (effort) rights or output (harvest) rights.

Forms of use rights

Territorial use rights

Input(effort) rights including limited entry

Output(harvest) rights

Territorial Use Rights in FishingTURFs may be defined as community held rights of use (or tenure) and exclusion over the fishery resources within a specific area and for a period of time.Community, territory and a set of rights (including a “satisfactory” degree of exclusivity and tenure) and responsibilities are the essential (minimum) descriptive elements of TURFs.

The territory governed by a TURF can relate to the surface, the bottom, or to the entire water column within a specific area.

The size of the territory will vary with the use, the resources being harvested and the geographical characteristics.

It should be sufficient in size, however, so that use outside of the territory does not significantly diminish the value of use within.

A TURF is not so much resource specific as it is site specific.

The territory should be readily defensible and protected by the laws and institutions of the country.

The boundaries of the territory should, therefore, be clearly demarcated and identifiable.

Certain kinds of rights need to be exercised if TURFs are to be effective right of exclusion ; that is, the right to

limit or control access to the territory right that needs to be exercised is that

of determining the amount and kind of use within the territory

right to extract benefits from the use of the resources within the territory

The extension of national jurisdiction generally provides individual countries with the right of exclusion, the right to determine amounts and kinds of use, and the right to extract benefits. Localization of a TURF depends more upon the size of the territory and the specificity of the ownership than upon the content of the rights.

The owner of a TURF can be

a private individual a private individual enterprise a group of individuals such as a

cooperative, an association or a community a political subdivision such as a town or a

province a national government a multinational agency

In addition, owners of individual TURFs can create a form of cooperative ownership in which individual rights are constrained by joint decisions.Generally, the effectiveness of a TURF will be greatest where the specificity of the ownership is the highest. Individuals can usually make decisions more easily than groups of individuals.However, with regard to the objective of improving the welfare of small-scale fishing communities, ownership of use rights by private individuals could well be damaging. In these cases, some form of communal ownership of a TURF will be desirable.

Advantages of localized TURFs

More economically efficient use of the resources

Improving welfare of small-scale fishing community

The owner of the TURF can limit the input of capital labour at the point where the greatest net benefits are produced

Opportunity and incentives to manage the resources within the territory

The major, and fundamental, problem is that the establishment of localized TURFs may require re-distribution of wealth. The provision of exclusive rights means that some present users of the territory are likely to be excluded. Although this may be socially and economically desirable it may also be politically difficult.

Traditional TURFs and problems of open access fisheryTerritorial Use Rights in fisheries, in the sense of community-held rights of use over resources within a territory at the exclusion of others have been known to exist for centuries. Examples of traditional TURFs are still found today, among other places, in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Oceania, Ivory Coast. Many of these customary rights are now crumbling under the pressures of population growth, technological change and commercialization of subsistence fisheries.

As it is widely accepted, unrestrained competition in open-access fisheries leads to expansion of effort (employment of capital and labor) far beyond the level which maximizes either economic benefits or sustainable catch, to the point where costs become so high and catch so low that no net economic benefit is being derived. This amounts to a waste both in terms of the resource and in terms of capital and labour.

A reduction of effort and its control at the optimal level might be attempted through a number of management tools or regulations such as catch quotas, gear restrictions, seasonal and area closures, fishing effort controls, taxes and licences.Apart from possible ineffectiveness and induced inefficiencies, the introduction, monitoring and enforcement of the regulations involves considerable costs which under certain circumstances are prohibitively high, in the sense that they exceed the expected benefits from regulation.

Under these circumstances, alternative management tools which hold a promise for lower implementation costs through self-management deserve serious consideration. It is in this light that the potential of Territorial Use Rights as a management tool is being studied.

Evaluation of TURFs as potential management tool can be done in terms of

Eficiency Equity A TURF is an “efficient” management tool if

it provides the means for generating or increasing the net benefits from a given fishery (or part of the fishery). A TURF is "equitable" if it provides the means for improving the distribution of benefits within the community from the exploitation of the fishery.

TURFs as a means for Increasing Fishery Net Benefits

Exclusion of outsiders Control over labour and capital Dealing with externalities Investing to enhance future returns Flexibility to adjust

TURFS as a means for improving the distribution of benefits

Improving local employment opportunities

Increasing local income, consumption and nutrition

Preserving social organization and reducing conflicts

Promoting social mobility and “learning by doing”

Improving benefits to society

A TURF may operate in a way beneficial not only to its members but to the society at large as well, by conserving resources, preventing environmental degradation and possibly generating some government revenues. It is to the best interest of TURF members to prevent damaging alterations of the environment such as water pollution, felling of mangrove forests and destruction of coral reefs within their territory because such actions would have a pronounced negative effect on their livelihood.

Finally, TURFs, or at least the most successful of them, may produce revenues for the society at large: (a) by saving on management and enforcement cost; (b) by reducing the need for costly welfare/development assistance to depressed fishing communities; and (c) by generating substantial resource rents, part of which may be creamed off by the government through appropriate levies.

Examples of TURFs are widespread - some examples include lagoon fisheries in the Ivory Coast, beach seine net fisheries along the West African coast, collection of shellfish and seaweed on a coastal village basis in South Korea and Japan, and controls over outsiders by fishing communities in Sri Lanka. Two particularly well-known examples are the long-standing arrangement in coastal Japan, where traditional institutions are incorporated in modern resource management, and the lobster fisheries on the north-eastern coast of North America, where fishers have been able to maintain extra-legal control on entry - exclusion rights. TURFs have a particularly long history in traditional, small-scale/artisanal and indigenous fisheries.

Reference

Territorial Use Rights: A Rights Based Approach to spatial Management, Keith R. Criddle Utah State University, Mark Herrmann, Joshua A. Greenberg

Territorial Use Rights in Marine fisheries: definitions and Conditions by Francis T. Christy, FAO Fishing and Planning Division

Territorial Use Rights In Fisheries by Theodore Panayotou,Faculty of Economics, Kasetsart University

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