Why exclusive use rights -- in particular, individual transferable quotas -- provide the most efficient way to use fishing resources; theory plus case studies of ITQs in six countries.

Water covers some 75% of the earth’s surface, while land covers 25%, approximately. Yet the former accounts for less than 1% of world GDP, the latter 99% plus. Part of the reason for this imbalance is that there are more people located on land than water. But a more important explanation is that while land is privately owned, water is unowned (with the exception of a few small lakes and ponds), or governmentally owned (rivers, large lakes). This gives rise to the tragedy of the commons: when something is unowned, people have less of an incentive to care for it, preserve it, and protect it, than when they own it. As a result we have oil spills, depletion of fish stocks, threatened extinction of some species (e.g. whales), shark attacks, polluted and dried-up rivers, misallocated water, unsafe boating, piracy, and other indices of economic disarray which, if they had occurred on the land, would have been more easily identified as the result of the tragedy of the commons and/or government ownership and mismanagement. The purpose of this book is to make the case for privatization of all bodies of water, without exception. In the tragic example of the Soviet Union, the 97% of the land owned by the state accounted for 75% of the crops. On the 3% of the land privately owned, 25% of the crops were grown. The obvious mandate requires that we privatize the land, and prosper. The present volume applies this lesson, in detail, to bodies of water.

Acclaimed author and award-winning scientist and activist Vandana Shiva lucidly details the severity of the global water shortage, calling the water crisis “the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth.” She sheds light on the activists who are fighting corporate maneuvers to convert the life-sustaining resource of water into more gold for the elites and uses her knowledge of science and society to outline the emergence of corporate culture and the historical erosion of communal water rights. Using the international water trade and industrial activities such as damming, mining, and aquafarming as her lens, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped of rights to a precious common good. Revealing how many of the most important conflicts of our time, most often camouflaged as ethnic wars or religious wars, are in fact conflicts over scarce but vital natural resources, she calls for a movement to preserve water access for all and offers a blueprint for global resistance based on examples of successful campaigns. Featuring a new introduction by the author, this edition of Water Wars celebrates the spiritual and traditional role water has played in communities throughout history and warns that water privatization threatens cultures and livelihoods worldwide.

The U.S. is privatizing the ocean, wreaking havoc on the seas and on fishing towns. Some people believe it is worth it

In this authentic account of a seafaring life, Captain George Moskovita offers a highly personal and often humorous look at the career of a commercial fisherman. George Moskovita was sixteen when he graduated from high school in Bellingham, Washington, and went to sea. Fishing would take him crabbing off Alaska, seining for sardines off California and for tuna off Mexico, and catching soupfin sharks for their livers (a vital source of Vitamin A during World War II). He came to Astoria, Oregon, in 1939, where he was a pioneer of the Oregon ocean perch fishery. In a career that spanned over 60 years, George Moskovita met with many maritime adventures, recounted for the reader in a clear, direct, and unsentimental style. He saw the fishery he had helped build devastated by foreign factory processing ships. He bought, repaired, traded, and sank more boats than most fishermen would work on in a lifetime. Along the way, he managed to raise four daughters with his wife, June. The name of one of his last boats, the Four Daughters, reflects the central importance of family life to a man who was often at sea. Moskovita's memoir provides a unique glimpse of Pacific maritime life in the 20th century, small-town coastal life after World War II, and the early days of fishery development in Oregon. With an introduction and textual notes by Carmel Finley, an historian of science, and Mary Hunsicker, an aquatic and fisheries scientist, this book will be invaluable to fishery students and professionals interested in the biology, ecology, and history of oceans and commercial fishing. It will also have broad appeal to readers of Oregon history and maritime adventure, and anyone else who has ever stood at the western edge of the continent and wondered what life was like at sea.

In response to pirate attacks in the Western Indian Ocean, countries worldwide have increasingly authorized the deployment of armed guards from private military and security companies (PMSCs) on merchant ships. This widespread trend contradicts states’ commitment to retain a monopoly on violence and discourage the presence of arms on civilian vessels. This book conceptualizes the extensive use of PMSCs as a form of institutional isomorphism, combining the functionalist, ideational, political and organizational arguments used to account for the privatization of security on land into a synthetic explanation of the commercialization of vessel protection.

A human and global take on a beloved vacation spot. The crash of surf, smell of salted air, wet whorls of sand underfoot. These are the sensations of the beach, that environment that has drawn humans to its life-sustaining shores for millennia. And while the gull’s cry and the cove’s splendor have remained constant throughout time, our relationship with the beach has been as fluid as the runnels left behind by the tide’s turning. The Lure of the Beach is a chronicle of humanity's history with the coast, taking us from the seaside pleasure palaces of Roman elites and the aquatic rituals of medieval pilgrims, to the venues of modern resort towns and beyond. Robert C. Ritchie traces the contours of the material and social economies of the beach throughout time, covering changes in the social status of beach goers, the technology of transport, and the development of fashion (from nudity to Victorianism and back again), as well as the geographic spread of modern beach-going from England to France, across the Mediterranean, and from nineteenth-century America to the world. And as climate change and rising sea levels erode the familiar faces of our coasts, we are poised for a contemporary reckoning with our relationship—and responsibilities—to our beaches and their ecosystems. The Lure of the Beach demonstrates that whether as a commodified pastoral destination, a site of ecological resplendency, or a flashpoint between private ownership and public access, the history of the beach is a human one that deserves to be told now more than ever before.

Conservation for the Anthropocene Ocean: Interdisciplinary Science in Support of Nature and People emphasizes strategies to better connect the practice of marine conservation with the needs and priorities of a growing global human population. It conceptualizes nature and people as part of shared ecosystems, with interdisciplinary methodologies and science-based applications for coupled sustainability. A central challenge facing conservation is the development of practical means for addressing the interconnectedness of ecosystem health and human well-being, advancing the fundamental interdisciplinary science that underlies conservation practice, and implementing this science in decisions to manage, preserve, and restore ocean ecosystems. Though humans have intentionally and unintentionally reshaped their environments for thousands of years, the scale and scope of human influence upon the oceans in the Anthropocene is unprecedented. Ocean science has increased our knowledge of the threats and impacts to ecological integrity, yet the unique scale and scope of changes increases uncertainty about responses of dynamic socio-ecological systems. Thus, to understand and protect the biodiversity of the ocean and ameliorate the negative impacts of ocean change on people, it is critical to understand human beliefs, values, behaviors, and impacts. Conversely, on a human-dominated planet, it is impossible to understand and address human well-being and chart a course for sustainable use of the oceans without understanding the implications of environmental change for human societies that depend on marine ecosystems and resources. This work therefore presents a timely, needed, and interdisciplinary approach to the conservation of our oceans. - Helps marine conservation scientists apply principles from oceanography, ecology, anthropology, economics, political science, and other natural and social sciences to manage and preserve marine biodiversity - Facilitates understanding of how and why social and environmental processes are coupled in the quest to achieve healthy and sustainable oceans - Uses a combination of expository material, practical approaches, and forward-looking theoretical discussions to enhance value for readers as they consider conservation research, management and planning

"Proposes experiments in deregulating and privatizing the country's transportation systems to rid them of inefficiencies and significantly improve their performance in moving goods and people around the United States; the book covers roads, airports and airport traffic control, mass transit, intercity buses and railway networks"--Provided by publisher.

In the quest to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of water and wastewater services, many communities in the United States are exploring the potential advantages of privatization of those services. Unlike other utility services, local governments have generally assumed responsibility for providing water services. Privatization of such services can include the outright sale of system assets, or various forms of public-private partnershipsâ€"from the simple provision of supplies and services, to private design construction and operation of treatment plants and distribution systems. Many factors are contributing to the growing interest in the privatization of water services. Higher operating costs, more stringent federal water quality and waste effluent standards, greater customer demands for quality and reliability, and an aging water delivery and wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure are all challenging municipalities that may be short of funds or technical capabilities. For municipalities with limited capacities to meet these challenges, privatization can be a viable alternative. Privatization of Water Services evaluates the fiscal and policy implications of privatization, scenarios in which privatization works best, and the efficiencies that may be gained by contracting with private water utilities.