The Unseen Currents: Part Nine

Reclaiming the Commons: The Future Beyond Quotas

The Long-Term Consequences of ITQs.

When Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) were first introduced, they were sold as a fix to overfishing; a way to protect stocks, bring order to chaos, and make fishing more efficient. But decades later, the tide has turned. Beneath the surface of economic “efficiency” lies a quieter transformation: coastal towns hollowed out, working fishers turned into renters of their own livelihoods, and ecosystems reshaped by policies that changed who could fish and who couldn’t. The Unseen Currents explores how the ITQ experiment, from abalone and lobster to the fisheries of tomorrow, has rippled through Australia and the world, exposing the gap between what was seen, and what was never meant to be.

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PART NINE

Reclaiming the Commons: The Future Beyond Quotas

Australia is an island nation where most people rarely eat its own fish. At supermarkets, the labels tell the story plainly: “Product of Vietnam,” “Imported from China,” “Origin: Thailand.” Yet just kilometres offshore, licensed Australian fishers are restricted by quota systems that were meant to protect sustainability but have, over time, transformed into a form of quiet privatisation.

The sea still belongs to the public in name, but the rights to harvest it, and by extension the right to access its bounty, now rest in private hands.

The Consumer Left Ashore

When Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) were introduced, they were sold as a way to end “overfishing.” Few noticed that they also redefined ownership. The shift from public management to private entitlement meant that fish stocks were no longer managed for collective benefit, but for the efficiency of capital.

Consumers were written out of the story. The right to buy and eat local seafood became collateral damage in a policy designed around scarcity and trade. Today, more than 70 percent of seafood eaten in Australia is imported, while much of the nation’s highest-quality catch such as lobster, abalone and prawns is exported under contract to foreign markets.

The result is a paradox: Australians live beside productive seas, yet a large share of the catch, especially premium species is exported. While local consumption exists, many domestic markets receive only a fraction of what those waters might produce under different allocation priorities.

The Disconnected Table

Once, a catch landed in Port Stephens or Eden would end up on local tables within days. Now, fish often travels further between the boat and the buyer than between countries. Local fishmongers close, replaced by large distributors serving overseas demand.

ITQs were never designed to prioritise domestic supply; their purpose was to maximise economic yield. In doing so, they severed the link between community and catch. What was once food became finance.

For the Australian public, this has meant the quiet erosion of a cultural connection, the simple act of eating from one’s own sea.

The Market That Ate the Ocean

The logic that governs fisheries today is the same that governs housing, water and energy: allocate rights, create scarcity, and let markets determine access. Each step moves public resources further from public reach.

Governments argue that ITQs deliver stability and sustainability, but they rarely address who benefits. In practice, these systems have transferred wealth from small working fishers to investors, from communities to corporations, and from consumers to exporters.

When fish become financial instruments, local food security becomes secondary to global market efficiency.

The New Experiments

Not every nation has accepted this path. Around the world, communities are testing models that restore access and accountability.

• Alaska allocates Community Development Quotas (CDQs), ensuring local people share directly in regional catch.

• Norway enforces regional ownership rules to keep quota in coastal towns.

• Canada has developed co-management frameworks with Indigenous communities that embed cultural and social values alongside economic ones.

  
  

These systems recognise that the ocean is more than a ledger, it is a living trust. Each model offers a glimpse of what reform in Australia could look like: community-held shares, cooperative licensing, or hybrid frameworks that guarantee both sustainability and access. These solutions may not be perfect, but they reflect an important truth: that the ITQ system, in its current form, is unsustainable and carries devastating long-term consequences if left unchecked.

The Right to Eat What We Catch

At the heart of the issue lies a simple principle: Australians should have the right to access locally caught seafood. That right has been undermined by a system that sells entitlement to the highest bidder, prioritising export revenue over domestic nourishment.

Australia has a strong recreational fishing sector, and for many people, catching their own fish is part of who they are. Yet it is those without the means to fish for themselves who lose the most. Not everyone owns a boat, lives near a good fishing spot, or has the skill to catch and fillet a snapper. That is where commercial fishers play an essential role: they provide the broader public with access to the same right — the right to eat fresh, locally caught seafood.

The human right to food is the right to have regular, permanent and free access, either directly or by means of purchase, to sufficient, adequate and safe food that is nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable, and that ensures a healthy and dignified life. When access to local seafood is removed, it is not just an economic issue, but a social and ethical one.

Reclaiming that right does not mean dismantling quota systems overnight. It means restoring balance, ensuring that a portion of every fishery remains tied to local markets and community benefit. A “local seafood guarantee,” for instance, could reserve a set percentage of catch for Australian consumers, reconnecting people to their coastal environment and to those who work within it.

Reclaiming the Commons

The ocean was once managed as a shared resource, guided by the principle that its benefits belonged to all. Over time, that collective trust has been fragmented into individual assets, leased and traded until the link between people and place all but disappeared.

Reclaiming the commons begins by reasserting that public waters serve a public purpose. It means recognising that food security, culture and community resilience are as vital as export figures or investment returns. It also means rebuilding policy from the ground up, not just for those who fish, but for those who eat.

If the first era of fisheries management was about ownership, the next must be about belonging. The sea still feeds us, but it will only sustain us if we remember who it belongs to.

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