Common Resources

Competing Goals in Fishery Management: A Case Study in Alaska

Over the past several decades, fishery management has undergone significant change as nations around the world have implemented catch share programs. Among such programs, individual transferable quotas (ITQs)—a type of catch share that provides a market-based approach—often are designed with multiple objectives in mind. Goals can include ensuring that a fishery’s overall catch is sustainable […]

Resources Magazine: The Limits to Ingenuity

When is ingenuity likely to help solve ecological problems? Is humanity’s ability to innovate its way around environmental problems relevant to how we think about conservation? I tackle these questions and contemplate the limits to ingenuity in a piece for the latest issue of Resources. Read the full article here.

The Limits to Ingenuity: Where Malthus May Have Had it Right

Marine biologists project the collapse of harvested seafood species by 2050. But do we need those species? The very question should generate ethical discomfort but also confront an economic truth: humanity might be able to innovate our way around the problem, at least from the perspective of food protein production. This raises a question for […]