How government regulations increase overfishing.

[Protestor:] Whenever anything immoral is done, there usually is profit behind it. . . .

[Christopher Costello, Professor of Natural Resource Economics at U.C. Santa Barbara:] The more control the government retains for these resources, the less well they're managed.

Costello concedes that the oceans are being overfished, but he makes the point that government regulations have only led to methods of fishing faster to catch more fish during the shorter seasons mandated by regulators. He favors an approach that guarantees each licensed fisherman a share of the total allowed catch, rather than using a time-based limit. He's basically talking about a cartel approach, but it's pretty clear that this is one case where a totally free market could lead to the tragedy of the commons.