Pilot Project for an Individual Transferable Quota Scheme for Squid

 

- Inter-industry collaborative cooperation to respond to the decline in squid resources and ease competition in fishing operations

 

 The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) has announced that it will sign an agreement for collaborative cooperation centered on a pilot project for the Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) scheme between coastal jigging and coastal gillnets in order to resolve fishing conflicts between industries over rapidly declining squid resources.

 

 The ITQ scheme allows trading within a certain limit of the individual quota range based on Korea's total allowable catch (TAC). This scheme was first implemented in Canada in 1972 and has since been applied in most advanced fishing countries, including the United States, New Zealand, and Iceland. Korea also plans to introduce the ITQ scheme when TAC is applied to all coastal fishing vessels as part of its efforts promote an advanced fishing industry.

 

 Squid is one of the popular species of edible fish in Korea and is most commonly caught on the East Coast. It is the main species caught by the coastal jigging* industry, which is locked in a dispute with the coast gillnets industry, which mainly catches cuttlefish and saury in the West and South Seas, but began to catch squid in the East Sea in 2020.

 

 To mitigate disputes between the two industries, the government designated the offshore gillnet industry as subject to the Squid TAC in January 2021 and banned the fishing of squid east of 128 degrees 30 minutes longitude in December of the same year. However, the coastal gillnet industry rejected the government's arbitration and filed an administrative lawsuit and constitutional petitions. Then, due to the recent rapid decline in squid resources in the East Sea, a “squid war” began when the coastal jigging industry began fishing in the West Sea, which is the main fishing ground of the coast gillnet fishermen.

 

 Due to the nature of its fishing method, coastal jigging has a low fishing intensity and has failed to catch the allocated quota because of the decline in squid resources. In contrast, the coastal gillnets industry has a low allocated quota because squid is not its main catch, while is fishing intensity is high. As a result, it was forced to dump the excess squid or illegally sell it at a low price. The two industries have begun to seek ways to cooperate in a mutually beneficial way in order to improve resource utilization inefficiency and preserve fishing income.

 

 The ITQ pilot project will allocate 400 tons of the coastal squid quota to approximately 30 coastal gillnets, but only to fishing vessels that wish to participate. Fishing vessels that do not participate will not be permitted to trade their quota.

 

 In addition, coastal gillnet fishing vessels participating in the ITQ scheme must operate their positioning devices at all times and comply with the catch certification system, including reporting their catch, transshipment, and landing through the electronic catch reporting system. They are also prohibited from dumping bycatch at sea and will participate in the demonstration operation of By-catch Bank,* which generates revenue by selling bycatch after separating the market.