Fishers exploit populations that are heterogeneously distributed in space and time without full knowledge of species distributions and with fishing gear that is not fully selective. The ability to change catch composition is limited by species mix at a particular location and time and the capture characteristics of the fishing...
A primary objective of fishery management is profit maximization, accomplished by managing externalities associated with catching fish, while acknowledging that some margins of fishing fall beyond regulatory bounds. Regulation often does not address the larger economy of which the fishery is a part, focusing instead on the cost--benefit structure of...
Fisheries economics has recently earned a seat at the global fisheries governance table, with everything from subsidies, to high seas fisheries, to Indigenous rights, food security, and human rights now being open for global assessment. The papers in which these studies are housed are in high impact journals, are highly...
This paper examines the regulatory decision problem facing fishery managers tasked with balancing desirable fish catch with undesirable bycatch. I approach the problem using Bayesian decision analysis. I first estimate a model of production, accounting for the fishery’s joint production of desirable and undesirable outputs. I then use the estimated...
Iceland had several disputes with its neighboring countries during the fifties, sixties and seventies over expansions of sovereign waters and control of fishing rights, known as the cod wars. Iceland was successful in securing exclusive fishing rights for its people. However, the problem of overexploitation, which lay at the heart...
Socio-economic analysis of seafood production is important for the conservation of aquatic ecosystems and the management of fisheries and aquaculture activities. Understanding how the livelihoods of people, dependent on the exploitation of aquatic resources, are affected by various changes is essential for decision making. The two main seafood production sectors,...
Based on a simple model of firm profit maximisation in a multispecies ITQ fishery, market clearing quota lease prices are modelled as a system of linear equations with dimensions dependent upon the number of quota species in the fishery and the number of different harvesting technologies. Finding a set of...
Climate change has been observed to have a significant impact on the distribution of aquatic species and productivity of aquaculture systems across the globe. This affects the level of food production, the livelihoods of communities that depend on fisheries and aquaculture, and the future sustainability of these sectors. As in...
The fisheries sector faces the challenge of determining effective management, in an ecosystem perspective in order to mitigate the Global Warming Potential (GWP).The main focus of the study was to analyze the resource utilization in the value chain of Maldives fish processing and the environmental performances of the steps involved....
The fisheries sector is a vital oceanic resource that build the core of the Blue Economy. However the realization of the full potential of the Blue Economy calls the requirement of effective inclusion of all societal groups, especially women whose contribution is not well acknowledged. The study focused to investigate...
In Nigeria, women play major roles of at least 75% in the fisheries and aquaculture value- chains from production, processing, storage, marketing and trade. Unlike the men, women have not received commensurate levels of attention and empowerment largely because their roles are perceived as ‘invisible’, poorly evaluated and undocumented without...
Stated choice random utility frameworks are a valuable tool for eliciting the preferences of fishermen. In typical applications, choice outcomes are known prior to choice selection, which may confound results when outcomes are uncertain. To evaluate the importance of uncertainty in decision making, we applied a contingent sequential stated choice...
Sophisticated computer simulations can support effective science-based evaluations to facilitate better governance of the marine space. We developed a range of spatial fisheries models, integrating biological with fisher decision-making dynamics and management for assessing management of multiple activities. We present the outcomes of case-specific evaluations with different ecological and socio-economic...
The first-hand market for wild-caught fish in Norway is subject to much uncertainty for both buyers and sellers. Factors such as changing quotas, seasonal variations in availability of important species, and sudden changes in market conditions creates instability in volumes and prices both on the demand and supply side. For...
Indonesian tuna fisheries are complex due to variation in the scale of fleet in the fisheries, their multi-species nature and problems with data collection. Moreover, like many developing-country fisheries, their management needs to take into account many other goals besides rents maximization, such as the distribution of rents and the...
The importance of land infrastructure for supporting coastal fisheries has long been acknowledged; its role in remote and geographically challenged fishing communities in the Nordic Arctic has visibly impacted community structure and development. This paper explores the Red King Crab (RKC) fishery in Norway and the ways in which its...
The importance of land infrastructure for supporting coastal fisheries has long been acknowledged; its role in remote and geographically challenged fishing communities in the Nordic Arctic has visibly impacted community structure and development. This paper explores the Red King Crab (RKC) fishery in Norway and the ways in which its...
The ocean salmon fishery on the US West Coast has faced periodic closures of varying extents in order to protect vulnerable runs. These closures can have serious consequences for fishers and fishing communities, and have necessitated the release of millions of dollars of federal disaster aid. The 2017 ocean Chinook...
Pelagic fish stocks are subject to fluctuations that are driven by climate change, overfishing and changes in market conditions. The fluctuating nature of pelagic fisheries creates uncertainties in fishers’ income, thereby adversely affecting their livelihoods. The aim of this contribution is to reduce the risk and vulnerability fishers face by...
The PrimeFish project aims to improve the economic sustainability of the European fisheries and aquaculture sectors under the perspective of the sectorial participation. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme. PrimeFish engages a large Industry Reference Group (IRG) that facilitates the access...
Implemented in 2011, the West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program was designed to achieve multiple economic goals and objectives for a diverse multispecies fishery, including increasing net benefits, profitability, flexibility, and utilization of harvest allocations. Here, we leverage seven years of comprehensive cost and earnings data to evaluate progress...
The importance of small-pelagic species in marine ecosystems and their economic contribution to coastal communities are increasingly recognised by many fishery managers. However, the management of small pelagic species faces many challenges due to environmental factors that periodically impact on recruitment of the species. Delayed responses in management to these...
The ‘blob’ of anomalously warm surface water that persisted in the North Pacific Ocean from 2013-2016 resulted in a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) of Pseudo-nitzschia along the entire U.S. west coast. The bloom produced record-breaking concentrations of domoic acid, a marine neurotoxin, that contaminated seafood and necessitated fisheries harvest...
Regulators in many countries have adopted quotas as a means of dealing with the open access problem inherent in fisheries. Unit quotas for the Norwegian purse seine fleet were introduced in 1996 but consolidation of licenses has been in place since 1978. The current Norwegian regulatory system does allow for...
We present a bottom-up analysis of the proportion of global marine fisheries subsidies to small-scale fisheries (SSF). Using existing data, we split the reported national subsidy amounts into the fraction that goes to small- compared to large-scale fishing sectors. Results reveal a major imbalance in subsidy distribution, with SSF receiving...
This study develops a dynamic model of the harvesters’ choice of when to use individual fishing quota (IFQ), considering time-varying rates of potentially limiting bycatch, and a time-varying outside opportunity. The temporal allocation of IFQ over a season by harvesters has not been well-studied empirically due to complexity of the...
Even in the absence of commercial fishing, Coho salmon (Onchorhynchus kisutch) originating from the Interior Fraser River (IFR) watershed have yet to recover from the low returns experienced since 1992. Coho are in a low productivity regime in which the number of recruits per spawner (R/S) averages around one, coupled...
Feedbacks between the ecosystem and the economy are important to consider when measuring impacts from a disturbance but are often missed in representations of the economy and the food web. Moreover, regional general equilibrium models often focus on how humans respond to ecological changes and do not consider that in...
Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) were once a thriving species in Southern British Columbia, providing cultural, economic and ecological benefits to First Nations and coastal communities. Nonetheless, with Coho salmon abundance starting to dwindle dramatically in the 1990s, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) decided to implement radical conservation measures...
Sablefish is a commercially important species with catch allocated across multiple sectors and gear types on the U.S. West Coast. A flexibility provision in the West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program sanctions those with trawl permits to target Sablefish with fixed gear, such as longlines or pots, allowing the...
What is the impact of the recent spike in Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna catch on the global price of bluefin and its substitutes? Will boosting the eastern bluefin quota even further benefit the fishing industry? And who stands to win and lose from supply increases? Using a novel...
European seabass and gilthead seabream are two economically important cultured fish species along the Mediterranean coast. Both species represent respectively 10.9% and 13.5% of the total value of the European aquaculture sector (Eurostat, 2013). The EU is one of the largest producers of seabass and seabream in the world, being...
In the North East Atlantic there are several straddling stocks, including herring, mackerel, and blue whiting, which are exploited both within coastal states' 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) and on the high seas. The pelagic fisheries of the North East Atlantic are all harvested by the same six...
Fishery management actions focused on the conservation of non-target species may impact the productivity of fisheries in terms of target species. This article studies California’s drift gillnet swordfish (Xiphias gladius) fishery and investigates the impact of a recent regulatory measure aimed to protect leatherback turtles. A parametric approach is used...
In the FPI framework, input indicators are those attributes expected to influence the outcomes of fishery management. One subset of those indicators is comanagement, measured by 11 input scores spread over four dimensions (collective action, participation, community, and gender). After applying FPIs to 13 Japanese coastal fisheries that varied in...
As changes in climate and corresponding ocean shifts threaten U.S. fisheries with uncertain change, West Coast marine scientists and fishery management institutions have newly emphasized ecosystem-based analysis and management. The development of the West Coast-specific California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (CCIEA) has accordingly allowed for economic analyses and the social...
Catch shares are being increasingly adopted worldwide to halt overfishing and improve ecosystem outcomes. Rights-based fisheries management generates economic efficiency, and fishers with a financial stake in the fisheries are believed to have the incentive to become ecological stewards. However, the empirical evidence shows no significant impact of catch share...
Commercial fishing can provide a source of economic opportunities for coastal communities; however, little is known about how large such effects may be. In particular, there is limited empirical research on what indirect impact commercial fishing may have on local economic activity in other sectors through spillover/multiplier effects. While such...
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) executes a number of activities that support a more holistic way of studying and managing marine resources, namely an ecosystem-based approach to management (EBM). This presentation will provide an overview of NOAA’s Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) program as well as Large Marine Ecosystem...
Managing internationally-shared fish stocks, those that migrate from one country’s coast to another is incredibly difficult and requires international cooperation. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is the regulatory body responsible for managing tuna and tuna-like species in Atlantic and adjacent seas fisheries. Although ICCAT has...
The U.S. Atlantic pelagic longline fleet pursues highly migratory species (e.g., swordfish, tunas, and sharks) over an extensive range in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea. Because of the fleet’s diverse range and vessel characteristics, fuel can be a major component of vessel operating costs and can make...
Situation: UK scallop fishing is input measures, with effort limits applied to >15m vessels only. There are no output limits. Industry members noted a decline in profits, and suggested that the effort regime was to blame. Government asked for evidence to support the claim and asked Seafish for economic analysis...
Given the high pressure in fishing resources, the interest of going beyond the resources and understanding market trends, market barriers, and fisheries value-chain inequities, has increased in the last decade. This knowledge is necessary to improve those chains and to promote better financial returns for fishers and market participants, in...
Demand for science and advice to address economic considerations is increasing, but the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) does not engage many economists or address economic issues in many member countries. The Strategic Initiative on the Human Dimension (SIHD) has raised the profile of economics, but...