When I was at University I went to a guest lecturer who was talking about the mathematics of government policies in the UK.
They touched on the interesting subject of quotas for the fishing industry, and how they were impacting or not impacting fishermen.
* Some fishermen were forced to throw away extra catch back into the sea (which is wasteful), especially if the next week they didn't have a great catch
* Some fishermen would team up with other fishermen to split the catches before landing them in harbour
* Other fishermen would under declare their catches, along with the harbour fish markets
All in all, the conclusion was that quotas are near impossible to enforce, are another layer of bureaucracy and are impossible to gain accurate data observations from. However to the general public, they are an easy sell by goverments, especially on environmental issues like fish and oceans.
Which to this day has always instilled a healthy skepticism in quotas.
"The beatings will continue until the quotas improve...."
They touched on the interesting subject of quotas for the fishing industry, and how they were impacting or not impacting fishermen.
* Some fishermen were forced to throw away extra catch back into the sea (which is wasteful), especially if the next week they didn't have a great catch
* Some fishermen would team up with other fishermen to split the catches before landing them in harbour
* Other fishermen would under declare their catches, along with the harbour fish markets
All in all, the conclusion was that quotas are near impossible to enforce, are another layer of bureaucracy and are impossible to gain accurate data observations from. However to the general public, they are an easy sell by goverments, especially on environmental issues like fish and oceans.
Which to this day has always instilled a healthy skepticism in quotas.
"The beatings will continue until the quotas improve...."