Australian fisheries are managed by governments to ensure that commercial fishing is undertaken in a sustainable and economically efficient manner. Fisheries management decisions influence the level of catch from a fishery, either directly through setting the total allowable catches that the...

The northern prawn fishery has been subject to management since the early 1970s in an attempt to control the expansion of effort and prevent the overexploitation of the resource. Many of the management policies developed over this period have proved to be ineffective in controlling effort. Moreover,...

Individual transferable catch quotas (ITQs) were allocated to fishermen in the Australian southern bluefin tuna fishery in 1984. The profitability of the industry increased substantially as a result. This is despite the total Australian catch being halved between 1984 and 1987 due to a decline in...