The Biggest Lie is that fishermen are inherently incapable of sustainably managing the fisheries they participate in.
The sole basis of this belief is The Tragedy of the Commons, an article published in the journal Science by an ecologist, Garrett Hardin, in 1968. Hardin’s article describes the dilemma of hypothetical herders sharing a hypothetical plot of land in medieval Europe. It’s been used and is still being used as proof positive that fishermen are incapable of rationally harvesting fish that “belong to everybody.”
Hardin is reputed to have later said that his article might better have been titled “The Tragedy of the Unregulated Commons,” which has no bearing at all on today’s over-regulated fisheries. This obvious fact is understandably ignored by the foundation-funded anti-fishing activists in their so far successful campaign to marginalize fishermen in the management process. (Note that Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom, convincingly – at least to the Nobel selec-tion committee – argues that Hardin’s “tragedy,” though applicable in limited situations, suffers from over-application.) From It's time to stop Magnuson from being a weapon against fishing communities at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/All%20Stolpe%20Columns.htm#Magnuson%20Weapon.
Read this complete story at Fishnet.