"An industry inclined to eat its seed corn"

If the right to catch a fixed percentage of the annual harvest were assigned to individual fishermen, the problem of the commons would be solved. Incentives to overfish would dissolve -- indeed, those with quotas would have a strong stake in sustaining the fishery, much the way owners of farmland have a stake in preventing erosion.

The themes in this article from the New York Times published in 1995 still resonate today.