The southern rock lobster (Jasus edwardsit) is fished commercially in south-eastern Australia and New Zealand. The Victorian annual catch is currently 458 tonnes with a landed value of $14.5 million representing 10.6% of total rock lobster landings in south east Australia (ABARE 1997). Over eighty...

Issues surrounding access to fisheries resources and their allocation among competing parties go back to early feudal times in England where the Magna Carta was thought to be responsible for establishing the common law principle of the public right to fish in tidal waters, with fish being deemed to...