Management of fisheries resources in Morocco and modes of access: The "Anti-Commons" model for the octopus fishing

Abstract

International fish stocks are mostly overexploited due to overfishing and governance inefficiency. The fishery management failure has negative consequences upon the resource valuation and sustainability. Imperfection in coordination is among the reasons of this management failure. This paper looks at the coordination problems in the context of Moroccan octopus fishery. Among the causes of the coordination imperfection is anti-commons, which refer to shared knowledge and expertise among disconnected and separated decision makers. We used a theoretical economic model developed by Driouchi and Malki (2011). The most estimated parameter coefficients are significant at 1% and 5% levels. The Lerner index and the conjectural variation elasticity values indicate that the octopus market is imperfect which confirms the prevalence of anti-commons effects. The octopus supply is concentrated in a handful number of operators, which own large numbers of fishing vessels. These owners have succeed to impose their decisions in relation to fishery management.

Keywords

• Anti-commons
• coordination
• fisheries
• octopus
• management
• market collusion