The Development and Management of Marine Fisheries in Latin America and the Caribbean
By Francis T. Christy (07/97, ENV-110, En) See also Environment and Natural Resources
During the 1960s most governments paid little attention to the development of marine fishery resources, but in the 1970s there were several attempts to develop the resources through the use of large scale parastatal enterprises and public investment in fisheries infrastructure, some with IDB support. The subsequent general failure of state-run fisheries operations throughout the region and a move toward privatization led to the eventual extinction of IDB investment lending to the public sector for fisheries by 1985. Over the past decade, it has become increasingly apparent that most fish stocks in the region suffer from overfishing, in economic and perhaps biological terms, leading many countries in the region to begin to devote increasing attention to fisheries management. Francis T. Christy reviews the evolution of the region's fisheries and the national policies and institutions that govern them in The Development and Management of Marine Fisheries in Latin America and the Caribbean. In an accessible fashion, Christy explains the economically wasteful consequences of the open access condition in fisheries and evaluates alternative policy instruments that can be used by resource managers to correct for the market's failure to properly allocate capital and labor to the sector. Finally he provides suggestions on how the Bank might improve the level and focus of its involvement in fisheries.
