Fisheries Management Fa 08

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Fisheries Management

Fisheries management can be defined as a system of rules and regulations which guide governmental management of selected fish stocks within 200 miles of their respective coastlines. The increase in governments’ interest in developing responsible and effective management techniques for fisheries has evolved as a direct response to severe overfishing. Governments have sought to install monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) programs to protect fishing stocks and fisheries which have exhibited a decline in biodiversity, marginal catch rates, or species collapse. To clarify, MCS and fisheries management are not the same, there is a great deal of overlap, however, MCS is often used as a model which is built upon to direct more effective fisheries management initiatives.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization has been a dominant force in soliciting the input of experts and disseminating their publications which prescribe guidelines for fishery management. In a recent technical paper titled "Recent Trends in Monitoring, Control and Surveillance for Capture Fisheries," the FAO defined the dimensions of fisheries management as:

Data collection and analysis

Data for management planning and operations gathered from:

Socio-economic studies, rural development studies, fisheries population studies, fisheries research cruises, licensing (national, provincial and district), catch logbooks, onboard observers, dockside monitoring, satellite vessel monitoring system, satellite imaging, inspections at sea and in port...etc

Participatory management planning

Planning fisheries management policies and strategies at the national level. Also, soliciting input from stakeholders (provinces, districts and fishers) when planning management zones or areas.

Establishing a regulatory framework

The management plans must be supported by legal instruments to ensure effective implementation. These legal instruments detail all the control mechanisms available for fisheries management including, but not limited to: Input, Operation, and Output Controls.

Input controls

Limiting:

number of fishers, number of vessels by fishery, licences, open/closed seasons, gear, vessel dimensions, area fished, and vessel identification

Operational and output controls

Establishing:

species and catch limits, by-catch limits, reporting requirements, air surveillance, sea patrols/inspections, logbooks, dockside monitoring, observers, port inspections, and accurate/up to date catch documentation

Implementation

-participatory community-based management

-"preventive" MCS activities to encourage voluntary compliance

-public awareness and education campaigns

-assistance to small scale fishers for supplemental livelihood development to reduce coastal area pressures

-full enforcement to ensure compliance by those minority of fishers that persist in ignoring the law

(Flewwelling, et. al)

Defining the Problem: Overfishing

Overfishing results from fishing operations which result in a reduction of fish stocks below a certain "acceptable" level. This "acceptable" level can be defined within two parameters.

Economic/bio-economic overfishing:

Occurs when resource rent (in this case fish stocks) experiences a negative marginal growth; fish stocks are being depleted at a rate which negatively affects profitability of fishermen.

Biological overfishing:

Occurs when mortality of a fished species reaches a level where stock biomass experiences negative marginal growth; if too many fish are removed then breeding slows down and can eventually experience a complete failure.

Tragedy of the Commons

As an open access resource, many fisheries fall victim to the tragedy of the commons dilemma. Without the ability to limit access competition between fishermen for fish stocks intensifies. This increase in competition leads to increases in capital investment in fishing technology in an atempt to boost productivity: this is highly detrimental to both fishing stocks and individual fisher profitability.

Harvest Control Rule (HCR)

Harvest control rules are a set of rules used for determining annual catch quotas. More “traditional” harvesting techniques like constant harvest rate or fixed quota are HCRs which have only one control parameter:

Constant harvest rate – target harvest rate

Fixes quota – target catch

More “complex” HCRs include more than one parameter.

HCRs are difficult to develop as a result of varying values of participants in fishing activities.

A study done by the University of Bergen (Norway) examined three performance criteria: average yield, variability in yield, and risk of biomass depletion below minimum acceptable level. The authors note that fisheries managers, fisherman, and other stakeholders would value each of these criteria quite differently. The study also makes an important conclusion: that up-to-date stock surveys in addition to accurate data on biological variation of an ecosystem or fish population are absolutely necessary for the development of an effective HCR. (Housholder, et. al)

Promising Management Intiatives

Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs)

ITQs are limited access permits to a percentage of the total allowable catch (TAC) of a specific species of fish. These permits are a relatively new instrument which allocates property rights to fishermen and companies in an effort to avoid open access problems. TACs are established by government fish scientists using harvest control rule models in conjunction with ecological data. Permits can be leased, bought, fished, and sold. Countries which have adopted ITQ programs include: the United States, Canada, Iceland, Australia, and New Zealand.

While market-based conservation techniques like ITQ permit trading show promise they have many drawbacks. ITQs represent only 121 of the world’s more than 10,000 fisheries. It is nearly impossible to enforce ITQs outside of EEZs. Additionally, ITQs in the United States, established under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 1801-1884) , have been met with political opposition as a result of distribution problems (increasing barriers to entry and accumulation of permits by firms wielding the greatest capital resources).

(see MacKenzie and "A Rising Tide")

The Economic Impact of Fishery Management

In addition to the serious environmental impact, there are significant economic consequences associated with poor fisheries management. The constant mismanagement of marine fisheries results in a sizable global economic cost every year. Each year, the differential between the potential and actual economic benefit derived from fisheries is around $50 billion. This trend is not a new development. The economic viability of marine fisheries has been decreasing over the past several decades, and the fishing industry generally operates under a state of perpetual deficit. According to The World Bank, the aggregate loss to the world economy, as a result of mismanagement of fisheries, is approximately $2 trillion, over the course of the past 3 decades. As of 2004, over 75% of the world’s fisheries were determined to be underperforming by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. This figure has gone virtually unchanged since 1974, indicating a long history of mismanagement. The $2 trillion figure is, in fact, a conservative estimate because it only takes into account the fishing industry. The economic impact on factors such as the tourism industry and the value of marine biodiversity go largely unaccounted.

It is important to understand how sub-par management of fisheries has led to an overall economic loss. The problem starts with excessive stresses placed on marine fisheries. Over the course of the past several decades, fish populations have declining worldwide. Pollution, rising sea temperatures, and increasing ocean acidity have destroyed the ecosystems in which fish reside, thus causing thinning populations. However, it is rampant overfishing that has taken the greatest toll on fish stocks.

(See "The Sunken Billions")

Overall Issues Facing Global Fisheries

The overall issue that is facing global fisheries is a compound one: declining fish stocks coupled with excessive and ever-increasing fishing efforts. As fish populations continue to wane, increased efforts are employed in order to catch them. These efforts come in the form of augmented fishing fleets, improvements in fishing technology, and subsidies. Let us address each of these factors individually:

Throughout the world, there is currently an extreme overcapacity of fishing fleets. In essence, there are too many vested parties competing for a small, waning stock of fish. The gross unproductiveness of the status quo can be demonstrated by the fact that the current marine fish harvest could be attained by half of the global fleet.

As fish become scarcer, it becomes more difficult and costly to catch them. As a result, commercial fishing entities invest in new fishing technologies. While such advancements in technologies may act as temporary remedies, more technology is constantly needed in order to make fishing possible, let alone profitable.

To make matters worse, many countries, including the United States, offer subsidies to commercial fishing entities. These subsidies buttress the fishing industry and create an artificial sense of economic vitality within the industry. This leads to a continuation of wasteful and destructive fishing practices.

Although fish populations have dropped in recent decades, overall catch numbers have remained constant due to increased fishing efforts. As fish become more difficult to catch, however, this trend will not hold. As it has become more expensive for commercial entities to harvest fish, revenue margins have been shrinking. As this continues phenomenon continues, marine fisheries will become increasingly less economically sustainable.

Many experts are convinced that reforms to the management of fisheries can remedy the problem. It is even believed that such reform can cause marine fisheries to yield an economic surplus by recapturing a significant portion of the current economic losses, and becoming a vehicle for international economic growth.

Case Study: Overfishing of the Grand Banks

Background Information

The Grand Banks are located on the North American Continental Shelf just off the coast of Newfoundland. The Banks are actually hundreds of underwater plateaus which range in depth from around 80 feet to around 300 feet, making it a relatively shallow area. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm Gulf Stream bringing nutrients to the surface and creating an incredibly productive and diverse ecosystem. What this does is it allows marine life to live on the plateau floors, in the water column, as well as near to the surface. The roughly 280,000 km the Grand Banks covers is a vital feeding, spawning, and nursing area for many shellfish and fish species.

These species include: Atlantic cod, haddock, capelin, Atlantic halibut, redfish (ocean perch), Greenland halibut (turbot), yellowtail and witch flounder, American plaice, crab, shrimp and scallop. The area also supports large colonies of sea birds and various sea mammals such as seals, dolphins and whales. (see "Backgrounder: The Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap")

History of the Grand Banks

Early European Explorers recorded that the waters were so rich with fish that you could lower a basket into the water and bring it up full of cod. From this point on thousands of people turned to Newfoundland in hopes of reaping the benefits of these rich waters. Small inshore boats took sustainable amounts of cod for centuries up to the 1950s. All of this changed for the worse as more and more people came in the 1950s. Due to technological advances in trawler design and power on the factory whaling ships, the last remaining whale populations were devastated as a result. With huge nets these trawlers could haul up seemingly endless quantities of fish. They were able to quickly process and deep-freeze the catch allowing them to work even faster than desired. It got to a point that in an hour, they can haul up as much as 200 tons of fish, Nearly double the amount as a typical 16th century ship would have caught in an entire season.

Collapse of the Cod Fishery

Due to the rise in technology, The cod catch steadily increased to 800,000 tons in 1968, which was the peak of the unsustainable catches.

By 1970 the declining northern cod population was insufficient to yield even 300,000 tons, while various species of hake, and other groundfish populations showed dramatic drops as well, Canada (and the U.S.), concerned that stocks were being reduced to almost nothing, passed legislation in 1976 to extend their national jurisdictions over marine living resources out to 200 nautical miles.

Catches naturally declined after the departure of the foreigners to just 139,000 tons in 1978, which is probably the level where the federal government should have capped it then, and left it for many years to give the stock the chance to recover.

Instead, government and investors in fishing were thinking big. Soon, the stern factory-trawlers, or draggers as they became known, became the mainstay of Canada's Atlantic offshore fishing fleet, and the northern cod catch began a steady rise again as a result only to drop severely in the near future.

Canadian Response

By 1977 the depletion of the Grand Banks had become evident and the Canadian government established a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which excluded non-Canadian fishing vessels from an area which encompassed most of the Grand Banks. By 1992 the Cod stock had become so severely depleted that the Canadian government was forced to close fishery. Nearly 40,000 people involved in the fishing industry lost their jobs. Both the fishing community and the marine ecosystem have yet to recover. At the end of the 1990s the Canadian government opened the Grand Banks on limited terms and to this day Cod is restricted to bycatch only. ("Chronology of Canada’s Actions to Curb Overfishing")

Canada has made a substantive effort to extend its monitoring programs outside of its 200 mile enforceable territory. In collaboration with the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) the Canadian government and other interested parties are working to monitor and manage high seas fisheries which do not fall within 200 mile EEZ boundaries. High seas fisheries are perhaps the most challenging management frontier, lacking any formal or legitimate legal organization beyond basic non-binding unenforceable treaties between parties. ("Canada’s Strategy to Combat Global Overfishing")

Works Cited

Agricultural and Rural Development, The World Bank. The Sunken Billions: The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform. Rep.No. Agricultural and Rural Development Department, The World Bank. Washington D.C.: The World Bank, 2008. 1-86.

Report on the Status of Groundfish Stocks in the Canadian Northwest Atlantic. Atlantic Stock Assessment Secretariat, Department of Fisheries and Oceans. June 1994. p.19.

"Backgrounder: The Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap." Overfishing and International Fisheries and Oceans Governance. Government of Canada. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/overfishing-surpeche/media/bk_grandbanks_e.htm.

"Canada's Strategy to Combat Global Overfishing." Overfishing and International Fisheries and Oceans Governance. Government of Canada. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/overfishing-surpeche/media/bk_strategy_e.htm

"Chronology of Canada's Actions to Curb Overfishing." Overfishing and International Fisheries and Oceans Governance. Government of Canada. http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/overfishing-surpeche/history_e.htm

Flewwelling, Peter, Cormac Cullinan, David Balton, Raymond P. Sautter, and J. E. Reynolds. Recent Trends in Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Systems for Capture Fisheries. Fao: Fisheries and Aquaculture Department. 2003. United Nations Food and Argiculture Organization. http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4411e/y4411e00.htm.

Housholder, Dorothy J., Mikko Heino, and Øyvind Fiksen. Evaluation of Harvest Control Rules: Simple One-Parameter vs. Complex Multi-Parameter Strategies. 2004. University of Bergen. http://www.bio.uib.no/evofish/papers/housholder_2003_evaluation_of_harvest.pdf.

MacKenzie, Debora. "Shares in Fish Stocks Halt Commercial Free-For-All." New Scientist 18 Sept. 2008. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14762-guaranteed-fish-quotas-halt-commercial-freeforall.html?feedid=online-news_rss20%7C.

"A Rising Tide: Scientists Find Proof That Privatising Fishing Stocks Can Avert a Disaster." The Economist 18 Sept. 2008. http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12253181.

The Downturn of the Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) in Eastern Canada What is happening to these fish, and why? by Debbie MacKenzie, November, 2002

Watkins, Thayer: The Collapse of the Cod Fishery of the Grand Banks, San Jose University Department of Economics, 2008