New Zealand׳s quota management system - incoherent and conflicted

This opinion piece offers a critique of New Zealand׳s approach to regulating commercial use of marine resources through the Quota Management System (QMS). The author writes from the perspective of long involvement in the commercial fishing industry as well as the aquaculture sector and fisheries management. Although New Zealand׳s fisheries management system is viewed by many as a successful model for other fishing nations to follow, the analysis here shows that it has embedded a perverse, rent-based management system that has created incentives for dominant actors to maximize low value-added extractive activity, often in very wasteful ways.