Simulation for Fisheries

The Common Property Resource Problem

The situation portrayed in the Fish Bank Simulator is one shared across common access resources: a situation where long term sustainability is sacrificed for short term gain. This problem is shared across the Northern Atlantic where fish populations have declined rapidly due to overfishing. To combat this problem area, new policies need to be put in place that use multiple strategies to combat the issue, use local resources as well as federal and state oversight, and have room to adapt to changing situations in our environment. While it has been long accepted that common property resources would be decimated in favor of human growth, the right mixture of policies can successfully combat this issue.

Our simulation, conducted on January 31, began with companies predominantly fishing the Deep Sea fishery while being more conservative with the smaller Coastal fishery, something rather unusual for this simulation. As the years went on and the amount of fish in the Deep Sea diminished rapidly, going from almost 2500 in Year 1 to about 250 in Year 5, companies moved more of their ships to the Coastal Fishery which had been relatively untouched and retained a fish population of around 1250. More companies moved their ships to the Coastal fishery and the amount of fish there declined as well, going from about 1250 in Year 5 to almost zero by Year 8. The resources still being allocated to the Deep Sea decimated its fish population to near zero by Year 5. As companies realized that the Deep Sea fish population was near nonexistent, they allocated some ships to the Coastal fishery and left some in the harbor. By Year 10, the fish population in both the Deep Sea and Coastal fisheries had declined to near ex...

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...to be effective in a variety of areas involving resource management. However, “communities also do not always have the knowledge to appreciate what they are doing may be harmful” in which case “local groups may need the support of higher level authorities” (Pretty 1914).

Although any one policy has its drawbacks and shortfalls, a combination of different strategies to conflict the erosion of common resources is plausible with a policy that uses a variety of strategies. The usage of trade environmental allowances should be used at a much larger scale, but without discouraging local communities from participating as well. Local groups are an effective tool, but may need the help of higher authorities in some cases. To address this, regulatory policies need to be in place at a national and international level to alleviate the common resource problem on a larger scale.