ABSTRACT
In 2002 Alastair MacFarlane (2002, 4) declared ‘New Zealand will be among a very small number of developed country fisheries with stable and sustainable fisheries harvests – a sustainable fisheries oasis’. But what sort of oasis is it? Internationally, much analysis has been focused on the Quota Management System (QMS) itself; the ‘nuts and bolts’ of property rights reform and the scientific outcomes for fish stocks have been studied, yet changes to aqua-commodity production made possible by the QMS have passed largely unheralded. This chapter contributes to geographic enquiry by setting out these changes and moves enquiry beyond debates over equity that surround the implementation of the QMS and property rights in fisheries to explore how firms have gone about securing growth when operating in the New Zealand fishing sector. It provides a general account of their attempts of vertical integration and diversification into the processing part of the chain and beyond the sector. Interviews with 53 fisheries sector participants carried out in 2003–05, analysis of secondary data and a review of the relevant literature demonstrates that the QMS is far more complex in terms of its outcomes and operations than is recognised or accepted by fisheries economists and those espousing marketised rights-based reform of resource management and allocation.
