Economic failures in French Recreational fishing management

In France, freshwater recreational fishing management does not account for anglers' satisfaction in a sufficient manner. On one hand, fishing effort is too high creating congestion costs. On the other, environmental quality is low while there is a positive willingness-to-pay for improvements. These inefficiencies are explained by the conjunction of three phenomena. First, private property rights are attenuated under institutional pressure. Second, recreational fishing is managed as an open access resource over the whole territory. Finally, halieutic policies focus on the protection of environmental resources and are inefficient to maximize the social rent provided by recreational fisheries. Fishing effort regulation and environmental services provision following the beneficiary-pays principle could improve collective welfare. Social pricing could insure equity in access to the resource.