It is on the rare occasion that the interests of conservationists and businessmen align, but that is what happened in the fishery industry, according to an article published in Science Magazine.

“Economics of Overexploitation Revisited,” co-authored by Ray Hilborn, a professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the UW, contends that it is more economically advantageous to pursue preservation efforts in fisheries than attempt to maximize profits, causing fish to go extinct.

Approximately 25 percent of the world’s fisheries have been depleted past the maximum sustained yield (MSY), the amount of fish that can be harvested without damaging their ability to replenish, according to the paper.

Hilborn and his co-authors propose emphasizing a strategy economists dub maximum economic yield (MEY) instead. In this scenario, fishermen form a cooperative, and are allotted a fixed percentage of a total quota of profits, eliminating the skirmish to catch fish.

Daniel Huppert, who specializes in marine affairs and economics at the UW, pointed out the profitability of such a strategy.

“In general, a fishery exploitation regime that maximizes economic yield will provide more total net income to the fishing fleet than would a MSY-based strategy,” Huppert said. “If the fishing fleet forms a cooperative, in which the vessel owners are engaged in selecting a joint harvest strategy, they will tend to keep costs low and product quality high, resulting in higher profits overall.”

Fisheries professor Tim Essington is working on a research project evaluating Hilborn’s hypothesis. His research thus far has also served to corroborate his colleague’s premise regarding MEY.

He cited cooperative Alaskan fisheries as evidence for the effectiveness of this method.

“The shining example has been the North Pacific halibut fishery,” he said, which has a ‘dedicated access privilege’ program, where harvesting rights are clearly defined and the fishing season has been lengthened.

In addition, a variety of marginal expenses have been reduced through practices like “ghost fishing,” where fishermen recover lost equipment.

Both professors are less optimistic when it comes to the logistics of putting a program into practice by converting competitive fisheries into cooperatives.

“Unfortunately, the amount of economic yield from a fishery is far more dependent upon the institutional regime than it is on the choice between MSY or MEY as a management objective,” Huppert said.

The prospect of improving earnings is a major motivator, Huppert said.

“There is a major push to implement these types of management systems throughout the U.S., though it’s not clear that they will always work,” Essington said. “The jury is still out.”

[Reach contributing writer Sara Grimes at development@thedaily.washington.edu.]