# B04 — Free control policy working

## STATE

**problem.** Single demersal stock, 3 yrs declining CPUE + shrinking fish size; harvest ~20% over MSY; recruitment-collapse threshold in 4–7 yrs. Open-access in practice (~120 small-boat operators, 5 villages, downstream processors). Regulator has TAC authority but historically defers to industry. Need: biomass back to MSY-range in 10 yrs AND <20% aggregate fisher-income drop; fail = stock collapse OR a regime pushing the bottom quartile below subsistence.

**meta_model.** Many independent users drawing from one finite, renewable shared stock under open access; private gain / shared-and-delayed cost; an approaching hard-to-reverse threshold; a corrective cut whose burden falls hardest on the weakest users; an overseer who has authority but defers to those it should constrain; convert uncontrolled access into bounded, legitimate entitlements without dumping the vulnerable.

## VERBS RUN (verb — why)

1. **match (search_by_facets)** — oblique multi-structure problem; decomposed into 6 facets (commons depletion / irreversible threshold / regressive burden / deferring regulator / access→entitlement / slow reversible-now decline). Surfaced commons_governance, tipping_point_prevention, hysteresis_management, regulatory_capture, property_rights/access_control, welfare/distributional + minimum_effective_intervention.
2. **match (get_archetype: commons_governance)** — confirm the spine; pulled boundary/access/quota/monitoring/sanction/replenishment/legitimacy/adaptation skeleton + capture & rigid-quota failure modes.
3. **match (get_archetype: tipping_point_prevention)** — the 4–7 yr threshold + "act before proof / preserve the intervention window" + precautionary-trigger logic, and the governance point that someone must be able to act before the crisis is undeniable (counters the deferring regulator).
4. **match (get_archetype: hysteresis_management)** — recruitment collapse is path-dependent: stopping overfishing won't auto-restore the stock; need an overshoot cut + separate exit threshold + staged de-escalation (rebuild faster than a linear MSY cut, and don't lift restrictions on the entry signal).
5. **match (get_prime: regulatory_capture)** — the deferring regulator is the live failure axis; harvested its anti-capture remedies (structural independence, redundancy/overlap, transparency, adversarial process, expertise independence).
6. **match (get_archetype: welfare_analysis_and_distributional_effects_assessment)** — the success/failure criterion IS a distributional constraint (aggregate income floor + protected bottom quartile); supplies equity guardrail + minimum-floor + credible-compensation-not-hypothetical logic.
7. **match (get_archetype: minimum_effective_intervention)** — discipline the size of the cut: use the smallest harvest reduction that reliably clears the rebuild threshold, because over-cutting is exactly what trips the failure condition (bottom quartile below subsistence). Graduated/proportional enforcement ladder.
8. **salience-rank** — load-bearing: commons_governance (frame) > distributional-welfare (the binding constraint) ≈ hysteresis/tipping (the rebuild dynamics) > regulatory_capture (governance fix) > minimum_effective_intervention (calibration). property_rights/access_control = mechanism inside the frame.
9. **prune** — dropped social_identity, bystander_effect, network_effect (crowded, low load); kept the 6 operative.
10. **compose** — nodes: stock (with collapse threshold), 120 operators (heterogeneous: top vs bottom quartile), 5 villages, downstream processors, regulator, biologist/assessment. edges: extract (operator→stock, currently racing), assess (biologist→stock), set-TAC + defer (regulator→industry), depend-on-income (operator/processor→stock). Annotated: open-access race = tragedy_of_commons; deferral = capture; threshold = tipping/hysteresis; cut-incidence = distributional.
11. **lower / transport** — map commons-governance components to fishery instruments (boundary=this stock+5 villages; access rule=licensed entitlement; use-limit=catch share tied to a science-set, overshoot-adjusted TAC; monitoring=catch+CPUE+size; sanction=graduated; replenishment=closures/refugia + buffer; legitimacy=co-management council; adaptation=annual harvest-control rule). Aligned roles; noted break: a flat per-boat or tradable-quota cut would concentrate loss on the bottom quartile → must add an equity floor + non-transferable basic allocation.
12. **evaluate-fit (gate) — distributional.** Anti-signature of a naive ITQ/cap-and-trade: regressive exclusion of low-capital operators; quota consolidation. TRIPPED by the failure criterion → keep a floor allocation + cap transferability + landings-to-local-processors clause.
13. **evaluate-fit (gate) — capture.** Plain "regulator sets a stricter TAC" trips capture (T1 expertise dependence, T5 invisible drift). → independent/transparent assessment, co-management with a non-industry-majority decision rule, precommitted harvest-control rule so the cut isn't re-litigated annually.
14. **evaluate-fit (gate) — minimum effective / hysteresis.** Don't moratorium (over-cut → subsistence failure) and don't under-cut (miss rebuild window). Set cut to smallest reliable rebuild trajectory with overshoot for the hysteretic stock; separate exit threshold from entry signal.
15. **reconcile** — abstract skeleton (bound→entitle→monitor→sanction→replenish→legitimize→adapt) reconciled with concrete floor + capture-proofing + buffered-income; produced the operating rule below.

`COST: ~9 encyclopedia operations (1 facet search + 5 archetype/prime fetches counted across 2 batched calls), ~30k tokens.`

===RECOMMENDATION_BEGIN===

**Design: a co-managed, science-triggered catch-share system with a protected floor and a funded transition.**

**1. Set the target and the cut by the stock, not by negotiation.** Commission an independent stock assessment — funded from a levy, not from the industry, and published openly — to fix this year's total allowable catch. Because the stock is near a threshold it cannot easily climb back from, do not merely trim harvest to the sustainable level; cut modestly *below* it to build a rebuilding margin. The right cut is the smallest reduction that reliably puts biomass on a 10-year recovery path: model the trajectory and choose the gentlest credible one, because cutting harder than necessary is precisely what would push the weakest operators under. Practically this means roughly a 25–30% first-year landings reduction, front-loaded modestly and then eased as the stock responds.

**2. Convert open access into bounded, legitimate entitlements.** Issue a license to each current operator and divide the allowable catch into shares. Critically, give every operator an equal, non-transferable *basic* allocation sufficient for subsistence-level income, and distribute only the remainder in proportion to recent track record. This stops the race-to-fish (each boat now has a secure claim rather than an incentive to grab first) while structurally protecting the bottom quartile: their floor cannot be bought out from under them. Allow limited trading or pooling of the *above-floor* portion so efficient operators aren't trapped, but cap how much any one holder can accumulate and forbid sale of the basic floor, so the fishery cannot consolidate into a few hands and strand the small boats.

**3. Make condition and behavior visible, and attach proportionate consequences.** Track landings, catch-per-unit-effort, and average fish size on a shared, public dashboard. Enforce with a graduated ladder — warning, then fee, then temporary share suspension — rather than heavy punishment up front; proportionate enforcement keeps a small community willing to comply.

**4. Replenish actively.** Pair the catch limit with a seasonal closure during spawning and a small permanent no-take refugium. Fund a buffer reserve (from the levy and from above-floor share fees) that the rebuilding stock and the income-support measures below can draw on.

**5. Protect livelihoods through the transition, since a sound cut still bites in years 1–3.** Use the reduced fishing days to fund a temporary transition payment and paid stewardship work — monitoring, habitat repair, enforcement support — targeted at the lowest-income operators so aggregate cohort income stays within the 20% band and no one falls below subsistence. Tie landings to the local processors with first-purchase arrangements so the downstream village economy isn't gutted by the volume drop. Compensation must be funded and actually reach people, not promised in the abstract.

**6. Fix the governance, or the cut will be eroded.** The regulator's habit of deference is the central failure risk. Move the decision into a co-management council where operators, villages, processors, and independent scientists share votes, with a rule that industry interests cannot form a majority and that the published assessment sets the binding TAC ceiling. Pre-commit, in writing, to a harvest-control rule: stock-condition triggers automatically set next year's catch within a fixed band. This removes the annual lobbying fight and makes the science, not the loudest incumbents, the author of the limit. Keep assessment expertise independent of the fleet, and publish the funding, the data, and the rationale so quiet drift back toward over-harvest becomes visible.

**7. Adapt, and don't lift restrictions too early.** Recovery is asymmetric: a stock pushed near collapse rebuilds slowly and unevenly. Do not relax the catch share the moment CPUE ticks up. Require sustained evidence — recovering biomass *and* returning fish size held over consecutive assessment cycles — before easing limits, and ease them in stages.

**Final operating rule:** *Each year, an independent, publicly funded assessment sets a total catch on a rebuilding trajectory; that catch is split into secure shares with a protected, non-transferable subsistence floor for every operator and capped, tradable shares above it; condition is monitored openly, enforced proportionately, and replenished by closures and a refugium; the transition is cushioned by stewardship pay and processor linkages so cohort income stays within 20% and no one falls below subsistence; the limit is set by a pre-committed, capture-resistant harvest-control rule and eased only on sustained, multi-cycle evidence of recovery.*

===RECOMMENDATION_END===
