Finally a political party who gets it. Michael Howard announced yesterday that the Tories would withdraw from the Common Fisheries Policy. There are four places which do not have problem with overfishing: Norway, Iceland, The Faroes and New Zealand. All have private ownership of the rights to fish. Everywhere else on the planet we have overfishing, in many places to the point where entire levels of the food chain are being wiped out.
This is a classic version of the Tragedy of the Commons and one which the decades long application of the CFP has failed to mitigate in any way, indeed certain parts of it encourage further despoilation of this resource. If you want more information on why the CFP is such a monster of inanane and perverse incentives, have a look through the archives at http://www.telegraph.co.uk and check out the weekly columns by Christopher Booker over the past four or five years.
One can also note that the UK, under the UN Law of the Sea, owns 80 % of the productive deep sea fishing grounds of the European Union and for us to treat it as a “Common European Resource” was a pretty stupid thing to do in the first place, but then it was agreed by Ted Heath. ‘Nuff said eh?