Ocean fisheries exemplify "common-pool resources". It's difficult, if not impossible, to fence in or brand marine fish. Their freedom is bound by the forces of nature.

These fish are fugitive resources. Their migration ignores political, social, and legal boundaries. This often leads to great tragedy. Fisheries demonstrate the classic "tragedy of the commons". They are increasingly imperiled by fishermen engaging in traditional and honorable activities: bringing high quality food from the sea to people.

Two problems plague both society and fish. The first problem is that increasing world demand and technological capabilities exceed the reproductive capacity of many ecosystems. The pre-1970s illusion of infinite abundance is gone.

Second, and most important, fisheries lack a sustainable system of rationing the valuable, but increasingly scarce, resources. Today, the world's fisheries are predominantly open-access. It's first come first serve, almost devoid of rules fostering responsible behavior.

Open-access subjects fisheries to the profound pathologies of the commons. Fisheries suffer from overexploitation and declining profitability because fishermen behave predictably when access to a valuable resource is open to all. In such circumstances individually and socially rational behavior diverges. Self-restraint and conservation is trumped by incentives that encourage overfishing. Individual fishermen reel in short-term profits from overfishing while society as a whole bears the costs of economic and environmental waste.

Fisheries commons result in ecological and economic tragedy. Fishermen aren't dumb; they want to stop fishing once they optimize the yield of the fishery -- but if they act responsibly, they watch others continue fishing. More and more fishermen and boats will arrive until profits disappear altogether. As fish become harder to find, profits vanish and the long-term health of the fishery deteriorates.

Overfishing is exacerbated by another pathology: overcapitalization. The race to reel in more and more fish encourages fishing capacity far in excess of the fishery's reproductivecarrying capacity. Economic distortions couple environmental degradation with overinvestment in fishing capacity. Unbridled competition produces bigger vessels, better sonar, and larger nets. Taxpayers subsidize newer boats and better nets. This only aggravates the situation as national politics fights marine international ecosystems.

This process spawns other pathologies. Bycatch, the incidental landings of unsellable species, wastes enormous quantities of fish every year (Discards in shrimp fisheries can outweigh shrimp landings eight to one.). Many fishermen practice high-grading, throwing out less valuable fish. Fishermen lack incentives to conserve the discarded fish, because they do not bear the costs of waste.

Regulating restraint through quotas on catch levels, minimum mesh sizes, and shortened seasons, often worsens matters. Fishermen lobby for overinflated quotas and more subisidies for boats capable of grabbing a bigger slice of the pie. More overcapitalization brings satellites, surveillance planes, and the latest in technology to bear in a mad scramble for fish. Cutthroat competition in derby-style seasons presses captains to employ dangerous tactics in already hazardous fishing conditions.

When fish cross boundaries, pathologies multiply. There is no guarantee that fish leaving one nation's waters will ever return, so the impetus is to catch as much as possible before the fish migrate. Fishermen play one area off against the other. The jurisdiction with the weakest regulations becomes the most popular -- and the anarchic "high seas" beats them all. Some fishermen fill their quota at home, then travel to foreign waters and fish again.

There is a fisheries crisis indeed. The pathologies involve ecology, ethics, economics, and politics. Dozens of fisheries are depleted, many have collapsed. Subsidies, price supports, dislocated fishermen, and sportsfishing restictions all take their toll. The fisheries crisis caused nearly thirty international conflicts in 1994 alone.

Avoiding the problems and preventing the tragedy of the commons requires institutional reform. Currently, institutions usually reward fishermen for lobbying to increase subsidies and quotas, for increasing fleet capacity, for entering a fishery, and for maximizing landings in the short term.

But there is reason for cautious hope. The astronomical costs of maintaining fisheries commons present political entrepreneurs opportunities to innovate. Market forces and property rights have proven effective tools for sensitive and sensible resource management. Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), as a sort of private-property fishing rights, are finding success in New Zealand and some Alaskan fisheries.

Economists can explain how fishermen, under better conditions, could restrain their efforts to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of fishing over the long run. A fisherman guaranteed sole and indefinite proprietorship of an ocean resource is unlikely to squander it by overfishing. Like responsible farmers and foresters, profit-maximizers would conserve and optimize resources -- not harvest like there is no tomorrow. Sustainability is key, because, for them, there is a tomorrow.

Individuals and society will benefit by overcoming the political costs of reform. Fishermen have become addicted to government subsidies for survival in overcapitalized, overexploited fisheries. Up to now, policy-makers have lacked the political will to restrain "rugged individualist" fishermen. Increasing scarcity and environmental degradation are making privatization with monitored and enforceable rules ever more attractive.

Leaders in the fishing industry understands that pathologies of the commons are leading to disaster. Without secure rights granted to communities or individuals, the beleaguered fisheries will drown in a tragic tide. The task is to develop institutional arrangements that harmonize ecological realities with laws of human behavior.