# C19 — Coastal fishery intervention design (free-choice control policy)

## STATE / WORKING

### problem
- statement: open-access coastal fishery, single demersal stock; 3 yrs declining CPUE + shrinking fish size; harvest ~20% over MSY; recruitment-collapse threshold in 4–7 yrs; ~120 small-boat operators across 5 villages, downstream processors; regulator has TAC authority but historically defers to industry.
- success: biomass to MSY-supporting range within 10 yrs AND <20% drop in aggregate fisher income (cohort average).
- failure: stock collapse OR a regime that pushes bottom-quartile operators below subsistence.
- constraints: open-access in practice (no enforced quotas); regulator captured; nonlinear/irreversible threshold; heterogeneous, low-resilience cohort.

### verbs run (verb + why)
1. **match (search_prime + search_by_facets)** — anchor the problem. Single meta-model query returned `tragedy_of_the_commons` (distinctive, top). Facet decomposition (6 facets) cleanly separated the structures the blended query buries: facet-2 surfaced `irreversibility`/`threshold_and_criticality`; facet-3 surfaced `regulatory_capture`/`checks_balances`; facet-4 surfaced the distributional structure → archetype `welfare_analysis_and_distributional_effects_assessment` + `minimum_effective_intervention`/`proportionality_calibration`; facet-5 surfaced `time_preference_discounting_future`; facet-6 surfaced `property_rights`. Archetype fusion: `commons_governance` (top), `hysteresis_management`, `checks_and_balances_architecture`, `skin_in_the_game_alignment`.
2. **salience-rank** — load-bearing: tragedy_of_the_commons (the core misalignment), irreversibility/threshold (why timing matters, why we can't wait for consensus), regulatory_capture (why "ask the regulator nicely" fails), distributional-incidence (the binding failure criterion — bottom quartile). Context: free_riding, scarcity, time-discounting.
3. **prune** — cut to operative subset (5): commons-governance core; threshold/asymmetric-recovery; captured-governance legitimacy; distributional floor; consequence-alignment. Dropped twin-family near-synonyms (public_goods — wrong: this is over-extraction not under-provision; concurrency/load-balancing — wrong substrate).
4. **compose** — typed model. Nodes: stock (resource), 120 operators (users, heterogeneous), 5 villages (nested user-groups), regulator (authority, captured), processors (downstream beneficiary), biomass/CPUE (monitoring signal), collapse threshold (invariant boundary). Edges: operators→extract→stock (1/N cost-share, annotation: tragedy_of_the_commons); regulator→sets-TAC→operators (annotation: regulatory_capture, currently dominated); stock→signal→all (feedback, currently slow/discounted).
5. **lift L1** — meta-model: a shared regenerating stock crosses an irreversible threshold under uncoordinated rational extraction; the authority that could bound use is captured by the users; any binding correction concentrates loss on the least-resilient participants. Witnesses present for every role. No domain terms in the skeleton — projects to grazing, aquifers, antibiotics, shared compute.
6. **get_prime / get_archetype** — pulled tragedy_of_the_commons (confirmed Ostrom design-principles substructure: bounded membership, locally-appropriate rules, monitoring, graduated sanctions, conflict resolution, nested enterprises, external recognition; and the three remedy architectures — rights, central, community), commons_governance (13 components), hysteresis_management (entry/exit threshold, state-memory, recovery path, relapse monitor, support taper), welfare_analysis (affected-party map, minimum floor, compensation pathway, subgroup disaggregation, priority-group lens), skin_in_the_game (exposure gap, stake-affordability adjustment, controllability).
7. **lift L2 — coverage check against commons_governance components (the discipline check):**
   - Shared Resource Boundary → INSTANTIATED (single stock, 120 operators / 5 villages defined as the membership).
   - Access Rule → INSTANTIATED (close de-facto open access; bound the eligible fleet to current operators, no new entrants during recovery).
   - Use Quota/Use Limit → INSTANTIATED, but with **over-lift guard**: the abstract "tradable individual quota" framing is *backed off* — naive ITQs would concentrate to capital and trip the bottom-quartile failure criterion. Use a community/village catch-share with a per-boat floor instead.
   - Monitoring Signal → INSTANTIATED (CPUE + size + landings at processor chokepoint), with over-lift guard on surveillance intensity (use the existing processor weigh-point, not per-boat tracking).
   - Sanction Rule → INSTANTIATED (graduated, village-administered).
   - Replenishment Rule → INSTANTIATED (seasonal/spawning closures, gear/mesh limits to fix shrinking size).
   - Legitimacy Basis → INSTANTIATED (co-management board; this also discharges the regulatory-capture problem — see checks-and-balances).
   - Dispute Resolution Path → INSTANTIATED.
   - Adaptation Cadence → INSTANTIATED (annual TAC tied to assessment — also the hysteresis exit logic).
   - Contribution Rule / Funding Pool → INSTANTIATED (landings levy funds the transition fund + monitoring).
   - Exception Process → INSTANTIATED (hardship path for bottom quartile).
   - Transparency Record → INSTANTIATED (public assessment + board minutes; the anti-capture mechanism).
   → No component `missing`. Stop condition satisfied.
8. **lift L2 — hysteresis_management overlay:** asymmetric entry/exit (collapse is the entry into an irreversible state; recovery threshold ≠ "stock looks ok one season"). INSTANTIATED: emergency deep cut now (threshold proximity), staged taper of the cut only on multi-year stability evidence, relapse monitor, support-taper schedule for the transition fund. This is why the cut is front-loaded and the relaxation is slow.
9. **lift L2 — welfare/distributional overlay:** Minimum Floor Constraint + Priority Group Lens + Compensation Pathway INSTANTIATED (per-boat guaranteed share + transition fund targeted at bottom quartile). Directly serves the binding failure criterion.
10. **evaluate-fit (gate):** commons_governance anti-signatures — fully private? no. Under-provision public good? no (over-extraction — correct archetype). Central authority can just allocate? no (capture + legitimacy + local info → community/polycentric, not pure command). One-time dispute? no. → keep. ITQ-as-primary dropped on distributional anti-signature. Pure central TAC dropped on capture anti-signature.
11. **reconcile:** model-view (concrete: regulator defers, so a TAC alone won't bind) vs meta-model-view (captured authority must be re-legitimated, not bypassed). Divergence resolved toward co-management with statutory backstop — the reading consistent with both: the regulator keeps formal TAC authority but is bound to a science-triggered rule + a co-management board, removing discretion that capture exploits.

### STOP — coverage map complete, no missing component, gates passed, distributional floor and threshold timing both addressed.

===RECOMMENDATION_BEGIN===
The stock is being drawn down faster than it can renew because every operator captures the full value of each extra catch while sharing only a fraction of the cost of decline, and the body that could set limits has leaned on the people it should be restraining. With collapse four to seven years out and recovery from collapse far harder than prevention, the design must do three things at once: bind total catch below the renewal rate quickly, do so through an arrangement the fishers themselves accept and help run, and protect the weakest operators so the cure does not destroy the livelihoods it is meant to save.

Begin by closing the open door. Freeze the eligible fleet at the operators currently active and admit no new boats during recovery; this stops a race to grab catch before limits bite. Set a total allowable catch below the latest stock assessment's sustainable level. Because the stock is near a tipping point, front-load the restraint: an immediate cut of roughly a quarter to a third from current effort, deeper than steady-state harvesting would require, to pull the trajectory clearly away from the threshold. Crucially, do not lift this emergency cut simply because one season looks better. Define a separate, harder recovery test: catch-per-effort and average fish size must rise for several consecutive years before the limit is relaxed, and relaxation happens in graduated steps with monitoring for backsliding. Entering the danger zone is easy; leaving it safely takes sustained proof.

Allocate the catch not as individually tradable permits but as village-level shares, with a guaranteed minimum landing for every active boat. Tradable individual quotas would, in a poor heterogeneous fleet, consolidate into the hands of those with capital and push the smallest operators out — exactly the failure to be avoided. Village shares let each community manage its own allocation against local knowledge, and the per-boat floor keeps the bottom quartile above subsistence. Pair the catch limit with gear rules — minimum mesh size and a closed season over the spawning period — so the fleet stops removing juveniles; the shrinking average size is the signal that the stock's future breeders are being taken, and fixing that is as important as the headline tonnage.

Make compliance self-financing and self-policing. Levy a small charge on landings at the processor weigh-points, where fish already pass through a chokepoint, and use that revenue for two purposes: to fund monitoring at those existing points (no need for intrusive per-boat surveillance) and to capitalize a transition fund. Direct the fund at the operators with the least cushion — short-term income support, gear conversion grants, and seasonal alternative work — phased down only as catch rates and incomes recover. This is what keeps aggregate income within the twenty-percent band while restraint is heaviest, and it is targeted so the cohort average does not hide ruin in the bottom quartile.

Address the captured regulator structurally rather than by exhortation. Replace open discretion with a rule: the regulator retains formal authority to set the total catch but is bound to a published assessment and a pre-agreed harvest-control formula, so each year's limit follows transparently from the stock's measured state rather than from negotiation with the industry. Stand up a co-management board with seats for the five villages, the processors, the regulator, and an independent scientist, charged with allocation, dispute resolution, and graduated sanctions for violations — a warning, then a catch deduction, then suspension. Publish the assessment, the catch limit, landings, and board minutes. Visibility and a science-triggered rule are what make capture costly and the limits legitimate enough that fishers will accept enforcement, including enforcement of each other.

Tie everything to the resource's own condition. Re-survey the stock annually; let the harvest-control rule raise the catch as biomass recovers and tighten it automatically if recovery stalls or any year shows renewed decline, with the transition fund as the shock absorber during tight years.

The operating rule: each year, set the total catch from the current stock assessment via the published harvest-control formula; never relax the emergency cut until catch-per-effort and fish size have risen for several consecutive years; allocate by village share with a guaranteed per-boat floor; fund monitoring and a bottom-quartile-targeted transition fund from a landings levy; and keep the limit, the data, and the board's decisions public so neither the stock's decline nor the regulator's choices can again be hidden. Hold restraint until the stock is verifiably back in its productive range, then ease — slowly, and only on the evidence.
===RECOMMENDATION_END===

COST: ~7 operations (2 search calls, 4 get_archetype/get_prime fetches across batched calls, plus the verb reasoning), ~24,000 tokens (dominated by full archetype/prime record reads).
