STATUS: The page is almost complete. I am still waiting for relatively small amounts of information from a couple of people. Here is the most complete current draft. -Todd
Introduction
One of the great challenges standing in the way of saving the global fishery is the difficulty of identifying the specific goals of fishery management and the most useful methods for accomplishing them. This section of our proposal will discuss what fishery management should do, then review factors that need to be considered when making management decisions and the tools that can be used to implement them. Finally, we will look at the possibilities for ecosystem-based fisheries management and make some recommendations regarding fishery management practices.
Why do we manage fisheries?
The goal of fisheries management ought to be the creation and protection of sustainable fisheries. For purposes of this study, we define sustainable fishing as fishing at a level and in a manner that it is reasonably believed can be sustained indefinitely, assuming proper responses to changes in the ecosystem. A more precise and quantitative explanation is [here--link to writeup of fishing pressure explanation][].
Sustaining a Fishery: Factors to Consider
Controlling the exploitation of a commercially valuable fish stock is not the only task fisheries managers must accomplish, because fishing has many complex environmental impacts and is not the only influence on the status of the targeted fish stock.
One potentially environmentally disruptive aspect of fishing is by-catch, the accidental capture of unwanted fish or other animals. The by-catch is often dead when it is thrown overboard. In addition, some of the fish discarded alive later die from the effects of being captured. Sometimes species caught as by-catch are endangered.
Fortunately, appropriate technology can help address the problem. For example, the by-catch of turtles in Australian fisheries [QUESTION] was reduced by 99% after the introduction of so-called turtle excluder devices. The same piece of equipment also reduced the by-catch of sharks by 91% (Catherine, Loneragan, Brewer, & Poiner, 2007).
Another issue that will become increasingly important to fisheries management is climate change. Different regions of the world must be considered separately, because climate change will affect each region in different ways (Harley, 2006).To effectively respond to global warming, management systems need to be flexible so that policy can adapt as the effects of climate change become more evident.
Regulations: The Tools of Fisheries Management
Many different kinds of regulations can be used to manage fishing. Most possible fishery regulations can be grouped into one of three basic categories: Input controls are regulations restricting how much, how hard, and with what equipment fishing can be done, and output controls limit how much fish can be taken. The third category, technical measures, consists of regulations that do not fit into either of the other categories, such as closing particular areas of a fishery (Sutinen & Soboil, 2003).
One common form of input control is licensing of fishers, which attempts to restrict the catch by limiting who can fish in the first place (Kura, Revenga, Hoshino, & Mock, 2004). Other forms of input control include restricting the amount of time fishers can spend fishing and regulating the kinds of fishing gear that can be used (Sutinen & Soboil, 2003).
The simplest kind of output control is a limit on the total amount of fish that can be caught in a certain time period, often a year or fishing season. Called a total allowable catch (TAC) limit, such a regulation typically imposes a cap on the total mass of fish that is allowed to be taken (OECD, 2001).
Many of the other output controls are variations of or additions to a TAC limit. Shares of an overall TAC limit can be divided among fishers, fishing vessels, or fishing communities. These schemes will be considered in more detail below.
Finally, examples of common technical measures are limitations on the size of fish that can be taken and restrictions on where fishing can be done (Sutinen & Soboil, 2003).
All of these possibilities have advantages and disadvantages, and perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that no single measure is likely to succeed: Nature and human behavior are too complex for that to be possible (Stefansson, 2003).
Comparing and Contrasting Management Tools
The mere existence of management in a fishery does not guarantee that it will be sustained. The management scheme used must always keep the catch within sustainable levels, and not all management measures are equally good at doing this. For example, limitations on total fishing effort consistently fail to factor in the effects of technology-driven efficiency increases. Worse, the effort limitation encourages fishers to invest in such efficiency improvements (Stefansson, 2003). [INCORPORATE BRIAN'S MATERIAL ON INPUT CONTROLS?]
Even the apparently simple and effective total allowable catch quota often fails: 16 of 22 TAC-managed fisheries analyzed in a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development had seen fish stocks decline or collapse while the system was in use (Morgan, 2001). A serious failure of TAC quotas is that they encourage a phenomenon called the race-to-fish. Because (at least in theory) only a limited number of fish is allowed to be taken from the fishery, all the participants fish as much as possible until the TAC is reached, in hopes of getting the largest shares possible of the total catch for themselves. In two extreme Canadian cases, the entire year's TAC was caught in a few days. Among the many problems caused by such a system are dangerous fishing practices and the appearance of large amounts of fish on the market at once, which depresses the price received by fishers (Kura, Revenga, Hoshino, & Mock, 2004). Wasteful overinvestment in fishing and processing equipment also occurs (Sutinen & Soboil, 2003).
Individual quota systems attempt to address some of the flaws of the TAC-only system. Under such schemes, shares of the total allowable catch are dividing among the participants in the fishery. When the quota shares can be bought, sold, leased, or otherwise traded, the system is called an individual transferable quota (ITQ) (Kura, Revenga, Hoshino, & Mock, 2004). Because the total allowable catch is pre-divided among the fishers (or other quota share owners), the race to fish is eliminated.
Although have been reasonably effective in stopping the race-to-fish and keeping the catch below the TAC limit, they are not perfect (Sutinen & Soboil, 2003). Criticisms include the potential for consolidation of the quota share in a few hands and the issue of finding a fair way to allocate the quota initially (Committee to Review Individual Fishing Quotas, Ocean Studies Board, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, National Research Council, 1999). Also, ITQs have sometimes encouraged fishers to discard low value catches in order to save their quota share for more valuable catches (Kura, Revenga, Hoshino, & Mock, 2004). But these problems are addressable with further regulations: A New Zealand ITQ program includes restrictions on how much quota share any single entity can own, and discarding could be banned as it is in Norway.
Even if all fishery participants follow the rules are followed perfectly, both conventional TAC and ITQ schemes can still fail if managers mistakenly set the TAC too high. The stock can then be seriously overexploited, as occurred in the Newfoundland cod fishery. Complicating the problem, current stock assessment methods often overestimate stock abundance during periods of decline. Therefore, overestimation of stock abundance results in a 'vicious circle' in which overexploitation leads to more rapid decline, which in turn causes scientists to overestimate stock abundance (Walters, 2004). [GET QUESTIONS ABOUT STOCK ASSESSMENT ANSWERED]
Rules constraining the size and sex of fish that can be taken are not useful unless the fish that must be discarded survive being caught. Too often, this is not the case (Kura, Revenga, Hoshino, & Mock, 2004). [MORE COMMENTS ON OTHER SYSTEMS?]
Ecosystem-based Fishery Management
Ecosystem-based fishery management (EBFM) is an ambitious proposal to more effectively manage fish populations and their ecosystems. It has been widely touted by the scientific community as essential for healthy, sustainable marine life. Current fishery management regulations largely focus on controlling the population levels of specific target species; EBFM recognizes the need for a more holistic approach to fishery management that focuses on the health of entire ecosystems - target species, non-target species, and the natural environment (Pikitch, et al., 2004). Fish populations do not exist in isolation - they are part of complex marine ecosystems that contain numerous species. Ensuring sustainable harvesting of marine species requires not merely knowledge of the biology of a specific species, but also an understanding of its place in the ecosystem - its habitat, food, predators, and other relevant characteristics (Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel, 1998).
While the idea of EBFM is not new, its implementation has been slow. Due to a lack of governmental pressure [REWORD] to adopt this new management style and a poor definition of exactly what EBFM is, the application of the principles of EBFM has been sporadic and inconsistent (Ecosystem Principles Advisory Board, 1998). Just now are fishery management agencies realizing the necessity of transitioning away from single-species based approaches to fisheries management and towards EBFM (Marasco, et al., 2007). While the actual implementation of EBFM policies remains in its infancy, the need for EBFM has been largely recognized by officials in North America, Europe, and Australia (Hall and Mainprize, 2004).
EBFM is by no means a well-defined process with set protocols and formulas - the complexity of ecosystems makes this impossible. Understanding how an ecosystem functions is an enormous challenge in itself - complex food webs are difficult to comprehend, natural fluctuations in temperature and currents affect population levels and distributions, and ecosystems vary greatly based on locations and proximity to shore (Hayden and Conkling, 2007). Developing effective policies will remain difficult, since thoroughly understanding ecosystem dynamics is extremely hard.
Another problem is that EBFM cannot be effective without up-to-date scientific data on population levels and ecosystem conditions. The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy estimated that effective U.S. implementation of EBFM would require doubling the current $650 million of annual federal funding for marine research (U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004). Furthermore, ecosystems do not follow jurisdictional boundaries that humans have established (Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel, 1998). Our society is established such that marine policy is implemented in artificial jurisdictional regions, while ecosystems readily cross these boundaries. Effective EBFM policy will require significant regional and international cooperation.[EXAMPLES FROM SARAH?]
Conclusions
In view of all of the above information, our group's recommendations are as follows:
We cannot emphasize enough the need to manage cautiously. None of the regulatory tools are "silver bullets" and fishery managers must make sure that the systems they create are complex enough to be truly effective. Too often relevant biological knowledge is not sufficiently taken into account in management decisions (Young, et al., 2006). This is a shame, because physiology and other non-population aspects of fish biology can make significant contributions to management. For example, physiological knowledge can be used to predict migratory mortality of Pacific salmon (Cooke, et al., 2006), which would be useful information to have when setting a total allowable catch. The evolutionary effects of fishing (Helfman, 2007) should also be considered by managers.
Despite the need for management schemes appropriately customized for each fishery, it is still possible to give advice on the use of the various management tools. Input controls are not enough, some form of output control must be used. The total allowable catches figures that are needed to run an output control system should be calculated conservatively.
One way to do this is to use a value called the proven production potential. The proven production potential is equal to "the target exploitation rate times the minimum stock size that the industry can demonstrate unequivioc[QUOTE ISSUE]ally to be present by using direct stock-size assessment/counting methods" (Walters, 2004). In such a system, the government is responsible for calculating the sustainable exploitation rate, while fishers themselves along with governmental agencies are responsible for assessing the minimum stock size by assessing the minimum fish density. Such as system creates an incentive for fishers to invest in stock assessment and also prevents overestimation of stock abundance. [MATERIAL ON EFFIICIENCY?]
Although individual transferable quotas are not perfect, they are clearly effective in limiting the amount of fishing done in a fishery. Therefore, their further use is encouraged. However, we also urge those considering instituting ITQs to carefully consider and attempt to address problems such as quota allocation and consolidation and undesirable environmental effects.
In the long term, it may become possible to manage many fisheries by appropriate taxation of catches. Further details of this proposal are [here--LINK TO TAXES SECTION OF SITE].
The effects of fishing on whole ecosystems must be considered as part of any long-term program for creating sustainable fisheries. But until scientists and politicians develop more concrete methods of translating ecological knowledge into policy, EBFM will remain more of a goal than a practice. The need for EBFM has gained widespread acceptance; now the world must do the work necessary to make it happen.