Cockle Rights and Wrongs

Tragically, it seems that at least ten people have died whilst cockling in Morecombe Bay.
The cockle beds are public land, with an estimated value of £6m. The BBCs Peter Holland says:

"In the past we've had stories about illegal immigrants, people who are [claiming] benefits actually working down on the sands, where there are very rich pickings of £500 a day."

Firstly, lets not assume that since the cocklers were Chinese they were illegal immigrants, but perhaps we can conjecture a little. Immigrant's engaging in entrepreneurial activity such as this demonstrates just why any liberal society should be welcoming - let's dispel the myth that immigrants would rather collect support than search for profits.
But can anyone be surprised that people are willing to risk their safety, when £6m worth of merchendise is available on a plate? Befitting our collectivist society, the suggested answer is to regulate.
Local MP Gerladine Smith:

"Should we really be looking at regulating cockle picking and making sure that only proper fisher folk can fish on the bay, rather than just anyone going out in these treacherous conditions?

Translation:

"In order to get elected, I rely on the votes of local fishermen, so we should give them exclusive access to the bounty. Under the pretense that we're helping the vulnerable, lets close yet another path to an honest living.

My suggestion:
Only under private property rights would the future yield be discounted into the present value. So sell the property rights to a group of entrepreneurs (whoever'll pay the most, regardless of skin colour), who'll have an incentive to prevent people getting stuck in the sands (saving money in emergency services), and the council can use the £6m raised to fund local primary school education.
In seriousness, I'm not making light of this terrible story, and merely hope some sense will result.

Comments

[thomasconolly]

Was the quote from Geraldine Smith "Should we", or "We should"? Because this difference radically alters the meaning of the statement.
Do you not think that selling this land to a private company would obstruct both immigrants and local fisherman from making a living from it, as any excess profit would be skimmed off the top in order to justify their purchasing of it. Also, with a seemingly fresh supply of labour via an influx of people nto the country, workers would be disposable without affecting profit, which would put them in greater danger. Also, if a cockle-picker had to give, say 50% of his profit to the land owner, then he would have to work for longer periods to gain what he had previously, thus putting him in more danger.

But perhaps this is the lesser of two evils?

[JRWB]

I once went cockling, it was tremendous fun, and I think that we are perhaps jumping to another conclusion that these 30 cocklers (or cocklees) were engaged in this pursuit for profit. Personally, I can think of nothing better than setting out at 3 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon with 29 friends to find cockles which we would then eat for our dinner; but maybe I’m just being shellfish.

[AJE]

The quote is "should we" but i'm not sure the meaning is different. It seems she means "we should", or at least she's raising the question.
It seems that the deceased were indeed immigrants; something fishy is going on. I'm not sure I know what you mean by skimmed profits. Whoever buys the rights to the land could use it in two ways: firstly like a strawberry pick you own. In this case, the value of their enterprise depends on the safety of their customers. Secondly, they could simply hire workers to pick cockles. In this case, the profit of the worker is his wage.
In either instance, I think there's a lower chance of dangerous activity, and the value of the resource will be higher. Also, if any accident occured there'd be clearly defined liability, as opposed to the current vacuous free-for all,

[JRWB]

I accept your point about the privatisation of cockle-beds leading to increased safety, but would have thought that the differences between cockling and PYO strawberries would provent it from being a realistic venture. In the case of strawberries, the crop is dependent on 100% management, the strawberries would not exist if they were not planted. In the case of the cockles, they simply happen to be there. These beds will shift location over time, and at the risk of this turning into a conservational argument, I suspect that the fact that the beds are not operated commercially, is one of the factors that are keeping them so well-plenished. If we are to privatise any activity that might end in danger, then surely we are going to have to privatise the entire coastline to "look after" people who nip out to get a handful of samphire to pickle, or dog walkers who enjoy collecting drift-wood, or bait-diggers... (actually, bait-digging and samphire collecting, is probably illegal anyway.) Tragic as this is, the issue is not really about cockles at all is it? Far more people drown on British beaches through other activities than do cockling.

[AJE]

"I suspect that the fact that the beds are not operated commercially, is one of the factors that are keeping them so well-plenished"
I disagree - it's because Strawberry fields are operated commercially that they are well-replenished. The stock of cockles has more to do with their natural abundance, than their ownership structure. For example private oyster beds seem to generate better results than public ones:
http://www.igreens.org.uk/oyster_beds.htm
Your point about the beds shifting locations is a good one - but this would be an implicit factor in the value of the beds, and of neighbouring coastline.

The safety point is merely an additional benefit to property rights, and is not a sufficient argument for their introduction. I concede that excessive litigation might disrupt the willingness for private owners to permit use of their beaches, but if this is so then the ramblers would be willing to pay more for the rights.

Also, lets not forget the importance of personal responsibility. A little danger is a good thing!

[thomasconolly]

I think i meant that a wage would not be equivolent to the amount currently, or previously rather, earned by the independant cockle picker. the cockle pickers were allegedly making £7 a bag, or perhaps £9, i can't remember the figure, anyhow it was way above mimimum wage, the reports were of £400 a week. So the income of Mr Picker would dramatically decrease to, say, £150 (a 40hour week on minimum wage {ish})if the beds were privatised. This would mean Mr Picker would have to work for longer periods and take greater risks to suppliment his income, which i imagine he probably would.

That said, the number of hours worked would be regulated by the employer, though i believe it is possible to opt out of the 48week law, making it legal to work for longer periods, as many people in low wage jobs inevitably do.

[thomasconolly]

"should we really" could imply the opposite of "we should really", though this is dependent partly on intonation.

[AJE]

Exactly-scrap the minimum wage!It makes poor people worse off.
I agree, it depends on the intonation and the likelihood that she articulated herself poorly.....

[thomasconolly]

Scraping the minimum wage would make the poor worse off. The figure is a minimum, not a maximum.

[AJE]

A minimum wage, wherever its been installed, has NEVER made 'the poor' better off. If anyone thinks otherwise and can produce any evidence, they'll become world famous, In the mid nineties a study by Card and Kruegar sugggested that a minumum wage increased employment in the fast food industry, assuming that fast food was a luxury good for low income people. It's since been fairly debunked.
all the evidence thats ever been collected suggests that minimum wages are harmful.

[JRWB]

The Filter^, finally giving cockles the attention they deserve.

I think that the difference between cockles, strawberries and indeed the oysters that you use as an example, is that in the case of these particular oysters and the PYO strawberry, these are not the species naturally found in the environments in which they are being harvested. As the article on private oyster beds points out, Japanese Pacific oysters were needed to be introduced, and the beds needed to be set up in places not commonly associated with cockle beds. Natural cockle farming can have dire consequences upon the natural environment, as was proved in the Dee Estuary in 2001 when the population of cockles was depleted to record levels having a knock-on effect upon the wading-bird population. These are issues which do not effect strawberry farming or artificial oyster beds, as these industries are unlikely to have long standing ecosystems dependent upon them.
Interestingly, many cockle beds around the country are indeed privatised, and there are plans with the Environment Agency to allow cockling to go on in West Kirby. The Burry Inlet Cockle Fishery in Swansea has been managed, I think since 2001, and seems to do well in sustaining the natural environment around it. Yet this increase in cockling activity undoubtedly has various effects. Whilst the Burry Inlet farm has so far noticed no visible increase or decrease in the population of oyster catchers, in his report, ‘Predicting wader mortality and body condition from optimal foraging behaviour’ (The Wader Study Group Bulletin, 100: 192-6) Richard A. Stillman has noted that not only does the farming of cockles reduce the amount of food for wading birds, but also as this activity is necessarily carried out at low tide, the birds are therefore disturbed from their feeding environment and forced to spend long hours in flight at sea. The conservational argument I would have thought, would tend to be in favour of creating artificial cockle beds, as is suggested in the private oyster bed article, Stillman suggests that this tends to create more food for native wading birds as they are able to feed on the detritus of poor quality shellfish. Despite the fact that all of these industries, whether they use natural cockle beds or artificial ones depend upon the jurisdiction of the Environment Agency, overcockling does go on, and has seen a mass reduction of cockling across the country in the last twenty years. When was the last time a man approached you in a pub and tried to sell you a punnet of cockles? If that’s not proof, I don’t know what is.

I was interested to note this similar story: http://iccheshireonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/content_objectid=13264087_method=full_siteid=50020_headline=-Cockleshell-tip-off-name_page.html

Who would have thought it of the humble cockle?

[thomasconolly]

I believe the minimum wage argument is that countries that introduced a minimum wage, such as the State and UK suffer from drastically worse unemployment than those that have no minimum wage, such as China and Hong Kong. Basically, low wage earners are forced out of work as their labour is deemed worth less than the legal minimum, so, yes the 'poor' get a bad deal. However, it seems strange that in this case the workers had come from China to work in the UK, which does enforce a minimum.

[AJE]

I think minimum wage studies tend to focus on smaller geographical areas. Did people notice how the UK minimum wage was introduced along with the 'new deal'. Obviously, the new deal will have short term, and possible long term boosts in jobs. By initiating the two policies simultaneously the harm of the minimum wage are masked.
Without resorting to too much speculation, I suspect that the 'standard of living' in the UK, which is high, and the generous welfare state (relative to other countries) make the UK a seemingly rosy country from afar. Once here, unfair labour laws mean illegal cockling is the only way to an honest living.

That is all guesswork mind, I'm not nearly as clued-up as cockle authority JRWB!

[thomasconolly]

I think we are all overlooking the main issue here.

Winkles.

[AJE]

agreed.
Winkles.

[JRWB]

Yes, but it would be a whole different issue if ten people drowned from winkling in Morecombe Bay.

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