ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the efficiency and distributional effects of implementing marine protected areas (MPAs) in the North-east Atlantic cod fishery in the Barents Sea. Recent work on MPAs has focused on the biological and economic efficiency of implementing this form of management (Polacheck, 1990; Sanchirico and Wilen, 1999). However, when MPAs are introduced in areas where there exists extensive and varied use of the marine resources, then clearly this management measure may have distributional effects, which could cause resistance to its implementation. Bohnsack (1993) argues that marine reserves reduce conflict between user groups via physical separation of fishery and non-fishery interests. It is shown that the implementation of a marine reserves map cause conflict within diverse fishery interests. In the biological enthusiasm and perhaps more critical economic focus upon MPAs, issues regarding distributional effects have been afforded little attention. Holland (2000) shows some distributional effects clue to dislocation. It is demonstrated that even without actually forcing some agents to move their activity, the age structure of a stock and the selectivity patterns of the catch when an MPA is implemented may result in changes in the payoffs to different fishing groups.
