Explaining Compliance with Recreational Fishery Regulations

Suggested Bibliographic Reference: Challenging New Frontiers in the Global Seafood Sector: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, July 11-15, 2016. Compiled by Stefani J. Evers and Ann L. Shriver. International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade (IIFET), Corvallis, 2016.Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.A necessary condition for successful management of fisheries is that fishermen follow the rules and regulations put in place. A survey was designed to ask anglers about their attitudes towards various recreational fishing rules and regulations, as well as to what extent the different regulations were complied with. Moreover, we analyze which factors are instrumental in increasing the compliance. To this end, some of the factors that have been deemed important for compliance in commercial fisheries and additional factors are tested. From a management perspective, this information is crucial knowledge when imposing new regulations as well as when assessing the effects of present management regimes. Hence, the results shed light over the effectiveness of traditional enforcement and whether there are ways to secure compliance without heavy reliance on costly enforcement. It is shown that there is no general pattern with respect to drivers of non-compliance across different regulations. Hence, for some regulations, legitimacy seems important, while for others is seems irrelevant. Moreover, in general we find no support that risk of detection plays a role in adherence to regulations