Economic Performance Indicators for Fisheries

Abstract

Fisheries management involves a degree of separation between ownership of the fish and associated natural resources, ownership and operation of fishing enterprises and management of the fishery as a whole. The arms length nature of some of the resulting relationships means that public reporting of a range of economic and biological performance measures is necessary. The purpose in this paper is twofold. First, a context and rationale is provided for the use of performance indicators in public sector resource management, specifically for fisheries. Second, an approach is developed for the use of indicators of performance against the economic efficiency objective of Australian Commonwealth fisheries management. Use of the framework is illustrated using survey data available for a number of Australian Commonwealth fisheries.