Enforcement and compliance in the Northeast groundfish fishery: Perceptions of procedural justice in fishery management, the effects of regulatory methods, and prospects for compliance

High levels of regulatory compliance are essential to the success of environmental and natural resource management. The physical presence of enforcement agents and threat of penalties for noncompliance were once thought to be the only factors capable of achieving acceptable compliance levels. Enforcement of environmental regulations often constitute the greatest cost of the management program for which monitoring and enforcement of rules governing how the natural resource is used is primal to insuring the resource is not over used and depleted in quantity, quality, or both. Additional factors concerning regulatory legitimacy and the legitimacy of the governing authority implementing the regulations also contribute to compliance and may be less costly than a management program that relies solely on physical monitoring and enforcement of natural resource use. In the groundfish fishery of the Northeast a 2002 federal court ruling is requiring fishery managers to impose tighter regulations on the groundfish fishery. The primary agency responsible for at-sea enforcement of fishing regulations is the United States Coast Guard. Since the tragic events of 9/11, Coast Guard resources have been diverted away from fishing enforcement and toward patrolling the nation\u27s ports. Tighter regulations combined with fewer available enforcement resources will require that a greater level of compliance be achieved for each unit of enforcement effort applied to the fishery. The objectives of the proposed research are: (1) To identify which aspects of fishery management and the governing authorities that are perceived by fishermen to be legitimate. Why do fishermen perceive some fishery regulations to be legitimate and perceive others to be illegitimate? (2) To compare the effect of physical deterrence on an individual\u27s compliance choice to the effect of increases in representation in the rule-making process on an individual\u27s compliance choice. Will a combination of physical deterrence and representation result in greater compliance? (3) To outline inconsistencies in data maintenance relating to commercial fishing activity, at-sea fishery enforcement, and prosecution of fishery violations. How can fishing activity data, enforcement data, and prosecution data be better maintained to facilitate quicker and more accurate estimates of fishery violations. We use a mail survey instrument following Dillman\u27s Total Design method to obtain data concerning fishermen\u27s perspective of the groundfish fishery. We use descriptive statistics and weighted sums to describe and quantify the responses from the survey instrument to accomplish objective one. We use experimental economic methods to analyze data from a common pool resource game to accomplish objective two. We investigate the consistency of data concerning fishery activity from the National Marine Fisheries Service, at-sea enforcement from the United States Coast Guard, and prosecution data from the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration General Council to accomplish objective three. The results of the study are: (1) Fishermen do not perceive fishery management agencies and the fishery regulations to be holistically legitimate. (2) Experiment participants maximized their personal benefits. (3) The National Marine Fisheries Service, United States Coast Guard, and NOAA General Council need to coordinate their data maintenance programs to provide for greater data consistency and integrity