Secure Fishing Rights
Find tools to implement a secure fishing rights program
Sustainable fisheries management is a core pillar of a climate-resilient fishery. Some of the best examples of well-managed fisheries around the world are those that include secure fishing rights. These management systems allocate a secure share of the fishery—in the form of quota and/or area—to fishers and communities, fortifying their abilities to serve as stewards of the marine environment.
EDF has a suite of tools and resources to help you design a secure fishing rights program in your community, as well as case studies highlighting secure fishing rights programs around the world.
Related Tools
Expand AllManuals
The Design Manuals will help chart your path to a more sustainable and successful fishery.
The Catch Share Design Manual, Volume 1: A Guide for Managers and Fishermen provides a step-by-step roadmap for designing a customized catch share program to meet your fishery's goals.
The Catch Share Design Manual, Volume 2: Cooperative Catch Shares provides important design guidance for co-management of fishery resources.
Manual
The Catch Share Design Manual, Volume 3: Territorial Use Rights for Fishing provides guidance for customized design of TURFs.
Tool
The TURF-Reserve Design Tool is an easy-to-use decision support tool to analyze which TURF designs might best suit your fishery and goals.
Tool
The SEASALT Evaluation Tool will help you to evaluate your fishery for the presence or absence of attributes of secure fishing rights, highlighting opportunities for future investment or intervention.
Manual
Transferable Effort Shares: A Supplement to the Catch Share Design Manual can help you design successful transferable effort share programs.
Global Spotlights of Rights-based Management Programs
Learn more about secure fishing rights
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Secure fishing rights are used around the world and fundamentally find ways to align fishers’ incentives with long-term sustainability, which can set a strong foundation for climate resilience. Rights-based management can be implemented through a variety of methods including community-based TURFs, allocated quota, and cooperative models.
A secure fishing rights program—also known as rights-based management or a "catch share"—allocates access to a fishing area or a share of a fishery's total allowable catch to a group or an individual. Programs establish appropriate controls on fishing mortality and hold participants accountable to their limits