Mot avvikling av trålernes plikter? En gjennomgang av utkjøpsavtaler i nordnorske fiskerikommuner

The industry owned trawlers land-lock obligation, originally intended to ensure both greater seasonal distribution of raw material as well as settlement in coastal communities, function poorly and has been put under pressure. This is due to the industrial trawler concept being torn between its role as a raw material supplier with a social responsibility, and its role as profitable actor on a competitive global arena. National and global trends in economics and politics, technological change and changing market conditions, forms a central framework for profitable businesses and which in turn help secure decentralized coastal settlements. Municipalities have obtained a key role by intervening in what isregarded as a closed system made up by private industry actors, a state administrative apparatus and shifting policy strategies. In this paper, we examine one of many fisheries policy regulations - industry owned trawlers land lock obligations - through a theoretical framework including industrial policy analysis to municipal innovation theory. We show how changes in regulations concerning the trawler land-lock obligations have made appeals to the judicial system unsuccessful as an effort to ensure that the catch is landed ac-cording to the original intentions. However, innovative measures in individual municipalities has produced local results, mainly in the form of economic compensations for missed raw material landings. This has also led to the proliferation of strategies among municipalities in similar situations. In this way, local authorities may contribute to the removal of a regulatory failure underpinning an outdated industrial concept. However, as long as the established allocation of quotas remains fixed (the "trawl ladder"), this solution will not increase the quota basis for the coastal fleet, something that could secure a greater diversification of activities along the coast. One should also be aware of the possible impact on the geographic redistribution of fishing rights in the coastal fleet, and the risk that prices of such rights might increase