I sort of brainstormed a couple ideas when I got back. Some people said that we should just develop a solution to solve all the large scale global problems and just ignore fishermen because they're such a small percentage of the population and they can't be convinced that there is a problem in the first place. I think that it's possible to develop a solution that works on the big scale while still improving the fishermen's current situation.
This solves Problem #5. With the technology we have today, we can easily develop a touch screen that shows a map of the area and where fishermen can or cannot fish, and it can be updated instantaneously.
On the other hand, this will cost the government money if we are to subsidize them.
This will make fishermen happy because they get to do their job. This also doesn't solve any of the fish problems whatsoever, and we would need to develop a completely new way of controlling how much fish get caught.
Some guy who talked to us spent a lot of his time working for a research institution because he can only fish for so many days in the year. The fishermen definitely sound like they have an thorough knowledge of what goes on in the fisheries (at least in terms of fish population trends and where to find certain types of fish), even if many of them don't have college degrees.
He said that a lot of times he'll be taking out researchers in his fishing vessel to gather data, but then the coast guard chases him down for entering closed areas, fishing without a permit for the day, etc. Also, he's not doing research related to the fish he's been catching for the past 30 years.
Jobs in science would definitely help create a link and better understanding between scientists and fishermen (Problem 3, 4). Problem is, there are far more fishermen than there are jobs (guy said that he was lucky; some of his friends are now off working at home depot), and hiring them will cost money. (government subsidize again?)
Addressing Problem 2: say the quota is 500 lbs of fish, and a fisherman catches 520 lbs. what if, instead of penalizing the fisherman for going above the quota or throwing that extra 20 lbs. out as bycatch, we keep the 20 lbs. and sell it? the fisherman would only make money off the amount he catches within the quota and not the extra 20 lbs., so there isn't an actual incentive for him to catch above the quota. but would selling an extra 20 lbs. of fish and having that money go to some cause (I was thinking funds to solve Problem 7, but that would create an incentive to fish above quotas. maybe give the proceeds to the government? scientific research?) be better than dumping 20 lbs. of dead fish back into the ocean? what fishing methods allow bycatch to stay alive, in which case it's probably a better idea to dump the fish back? what's the cost of processing this extra bycatch (storing, cooling, sorting) and is it low enough so that people who process fish be willing to do this without making any profit?
This would solve #6. We said before that subsidies are bad because they increase the fishing effort and fishermen use the bonus towards buying more fishing equipment, etc. In Gloucester, at least, it seems like the fishermen can't increase their fishing effort due to Days at Sea anyway.
But subsidies cost the government money. We'll be paying out of our tax dollars to sustain the fishermen.
Also, fishermen don't want to be bought out. The guys in Gloucester talked about how yes, they need money and to be making a living, etc. but they also want to earn that through fishing, because that's their job and they don't like being told they can't do their job. Problem 1 still persists.
If there's such a high demand for fish (fact 1), raising the prices will reduce the demand in the first place. If the price of fish doubles, fewer people will be willing to buy it, and thus less fish need to be caught. Consumers will directly bear the price, and so this would be a good way to get everyone (in America) to be aware of what's going on. A problem would be that low income families will no longer be able to purchase fish. But how big of a problem is this in America, where there are other substitutes for protein? Another issue may be the economic consequences of raising fish prices, i.e. will beef prices go up? etc.
One way to do this would be to create a high tariff barrier, which makes imported fish (i.e. 80% of what we eat) much more expensive than it should be. The money the government makes off the tariffs can go to funding those GPS devices, or some other fish conservation efforts.
Would raising the price of imported fish also raise the price of domestic fish? (someone with a better economics background help me out here.) This would help Problem 6, since the fishermen would be catching the same amount but making more money off of it, and thus be making more money in general.
On the other hand, raising tariff barriers probably violates a bunch of international trade regulations. Maybe, since we're the international regulation group anyways, we need to create a law that grants exceptions towards fish?
Another way (or maybe this is inherently the same?) is for the government to set price floors. Basically there is a minimum price for fish that is higher than the equilibrium price. Not entirely sure how this works in terms of supply and demand (and the fact that we basically have a fixed domestic supply and a very large demand) and how the government/industry could carry this out.