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Application Of The Public Trust Doctrine To Modern Fishery Management Regimes, Kevin J. Lynch

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As the state of the nation’s fisheries has declined in recent decades, fishery managers have increasingly sought more effective means for managing fishing efforts to prevent overfishing. The situation is particularly dire in marine fisheries, where studies have shown that populations of large predatory fish species such as tuna, marlin, and swordfish have declined by up to 90%. Conventional explanations for this and other declines in fish populations invoke the concepts of the “tragedy of the commons” and the “race to the fish.” The tools favored by economists to solve these problems typically involve creating some form of limited private …