ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to study three different fisheries: a multi-nation fishery, a two-nation fishery and a single-nation fishery, representing widely different examples, but all showing the same symptoms of depletion of fish stocks. The basic characteristic of world fisheries is a persistent tendency toward depletion of fish stocks accompanied by high levels of capital and labour devoted to fishing, comparatively low catches and poor economic returns. The history of the baleen whale fishery in the Antarctic shows clearly the inevitable consequences of open-access, lucrative fisheries in terms of depletion and the difficulties in obtaining agreement to control fishing effort. By contrast the Pacific halibut fishery is fished by two nations, Canada and the United States, so that agreement concerning regulation of the fishery was comparatively easy to achieve. The expansion of the lobster fishery was brought about by the development of overseas markets and the new technology available to the fishing fleets in the 1940s and 1950s.
