We adapt the concept of a conservation easement to a marine environment and explore its use to achieve conservation goals. Although marine environments generally are not owned, those who use them for commercial fishing often are regulated. These regulations grant harvesters rights to use marine environments in specified ways, and the possibility of encumbering these rights to achieve conservation goals creates a potential role for marine easements. We examine this potential under alternative fishery management regimes and find, generally, that marine easements tend to be most effective when harvest rights are delineated most fully. Our analysis suggests ways the marine easements can have flexibility and transactions cost advantages over other approaches to achieving marine conservation goals. We also propose ways in which the design of laws allowing marine easements should follow, or depart from the design of laws authorizing conservation easements on land.

We present a preliminary model of the within-season behavior of a fishery regulated by a total allowable catch constraint and season closure. An individual's catch depends on where he/she deploys effort and on the effort deployment decisions of other harvesters such that catch per unit effort is greater when effort is deployed before others have contacted the stock. Individual harvesters are allowed, voluntarily, to join a profit sharing co-operative that is allocated a share of the TAC commensurate with its effort capacity. The co-op centrally allocates the effort deployment decisions of all members. Non-joiners fish independently. We find that the co-op will coordinate effort in order to: fish the maximum amount of time the stock is available, concentrate effort among its most efficient members and harvest at the closest feasible distance to port. All independent harvesters will deploy effort at the maximum feasible rate until its TAC share is filled and will deploy effort at the maximum distance that yields positive profit. Harvesters joining the co-op will be the least efficient operators in the fishery.

During 2002-2004 a voluntary, profit sharing harvesters' co-operative was allowed to operate in the Chignik Salmon fishery in Alaska. Regulators split the fishery's total allowable catch between the co-op and independent harvesters. Our economic model predicts that the co-op would centrally coordinate its members' activities, resulting in more efficient effort deployment than in the independent fleet. Empirical analysis of relevant data supports these predictions. We find that, in contrast to the independent fleet, the co-op concentrated effort among its most efficient members, fished closer to port, spread harvesting over a longer time span, and shared information on stock locations.