Previous Page Table of Contents Next Page     Anthony T.
CHARLES[9]  Saint Mary’s University, Nova Scotia, Canada
Elsewhere in this volume, various forms of fishery regulation
are discussed - such as area closures, limited entry and other
input controls (effort limitation) and output controls (quotas).
These regulations address a range of fishery issues: Who can go
fishing? Where is fishing allowed? How much gear can be used?
How much fish can be caught? Suppose, however, that we look at
these restrictions from a different perspective, namely that of
use rights - the rights held by fishers or fishing communities
to use the fishery resources.  Whenever a fishery is managed by
restricting who can have access to the fishery, how much fishing
activity (fishing effort) individual participants are allowed,
or how much catch each can take, those with such entitlements
are said to hold use rights. Such use rights are simply ‘the
rights to use’, as recognised or assigned by the relevant
management authority (whether