Proceedings of the 2017 Forum of the North American Association of Fisheries Economists, held March 22-24, 2017 in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Proceedings of the 2017 Forum of the North American Association of Fisheries Economists, held March 22-24, 2017 in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
As part of an effort to characterize the dynamics of the small-scale commercial fishery for California halibut, we were provided access to a large, multi-faceted data set. The landings data included price per pound, along with multiple factors that could influence that price. We combined fishery participants’ knowledge with statistical...
The Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs) have been successfully applied to commercial fisheries around the globe and have uncovered key insights into fishery management success. We developed an extension of the FPIs to consider performance of recreational fisheries. The Sport FPIs were developed through multiple iterations of consulting, piloting and revision...
A number of fisheries development projects are undertaken every year in recognition of the important role fisheries play in many coastal communities. The objectives and emphasis varies, but typically goes beyond a limited focus on fisheries management and the ecosystem to include essential economic and social impacts. This makes it...
The sustainability of fish stocks, fishery-derived income and well-being of dependent communities are interrelated and sustainable socio-ecological systems require an understanding of all three. A newly developed evaluation tool addressing these three important facets of fishery systems is the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs). The FPIs were designed to associate fishery...
Economists have long been interested in empirically modelling/forecasting the price of staple commodities using both structural and reduced form models. The purpose of this paper is to apply Pesaran’s Autoregressive Distributed Lag/ Error-Correction Bounds model for forecasting the ex-vessel price of lobster on the east coast of Canada using monthly...
One of the main concerns surrounding the transition to individual transferable quota (ITQs) is that it could have adverse distributional consequences. Some fisheries, such as the West Coast Groundfish fishery, have implemented moratoria on permanent transfers due to a concern that large-scale firms could take advantage of smaller-scale by not...
Pollock recruitment and biomass in the Bering Sea has fluctuated in concert with environmental changes since the early 2000s. As pollock spatial distributions, densities, and abundances varied, fishers have adjusted their fishing behavior. Utilizing ~30,000 trips made by Bering Sea pollock catcher vessels from 2003 – 2014, we found strong...
The study presents a bioeconomic analysis of artificial shelter performance in a fishery targeting a spiny lobster meta-population, with spatially allocated, individual exclusive benthic property rights for shelter introduction and harvest of species. Insights into fishers’ short-run decisions and fishing strategies are also provided. Spatiotemporal bioeconomic performance of shelters located...
During last decade, the excluding efficiency of circle hooks for sea turtle has given positive and successful outcomes in Oaxaca, Mexico. The research seeks: 1) determine if the change of fishing gear provides positive benefits to local small scale longline fishermen, 2) estimate the benefit and cost functions, 3) determine...
The status of many sea cucumber fisheries in the world is overexploited. Some of the reasons are: an increase in demand from China, the distance of these fisheries to China, and the high rate of fisheries development. Most sea cucumber fisheries are small-scale with a simple management system. To overcome overexploitation,...
The California Fisheries Fund (CFF) launched in 2008 as a public-private initiative aimed at demonstrating how to make financial investments in a growing, sustainable commercial fishing industry. Since then, CFF has operated as a nonprofit revolving loan fund, extending 34 loans totaling more than $4.2 million.
CFF’s initial business model...
Catches of several potential choke species in the Pacific groundfish IFQ are highly uncertain and tend to be concentrated while quota is broadly distributed. An analysis prior to implementation of the IFQ suggested substantial risk of individual vessels accidentally exceeding quota allocations for several rockfish species and Pacific halibut. Many...
Management of data-poor fisheries typically relies on setting an annual catch limit (ACL) using catch-based methods that are concerned with estimating a sustainable harvest and hinge on the logic that historic catches reflect a level of exploitation the stock can sustain. The resulting harvest control rules routinely set ACLs at...
In many small-scale fisheries around the world, hookah diving is the main fishing method and gear to catch high-value species like sea urchin, sea cucumber, queen conch and spiny lobster. Decompression sickness (DCS) and carbon monoxide poisoning (COP) are diseases related to hookah diving and are the cause of non-fatal and...
Information acquired by fishermen while fishing play a crucial role in their decision-making process. Those are used to form the basis for update of beliefs on productivity of a range of available fishing grounds while acting in an uncertain environment. In this paper, we focus on the formation of fishermen's...
Fisheries management has been traditionally single-species oriented. Only recently more pressure has been put on developing a holistic, science-based approach that considers the ecosystem as a whole. This approach is widely known as ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM). One of the most often highlighted aspects of EBFM is the relevance of predator-prey...
An empirically-estimated production function for a Japanese off-shore longline fishing vessel for swordfish fishery is integrated with a demand model and operating costs. This integrated model is used to explore optimal fishing efforts, a combination of days for (a) searching fishing grounds and (b) actual longline fishing operations. The results...
For centuries, the Icelandic people has relied on its abundance of natural resources and fisheries in particular. In today’s volatile and homogenous economy of Iceland, fisheries is one of its main export industries, together with power-intensive manufacturing and tourism. Consequently, movements in fish prices have a significant effect on the economy...
The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, and its precursor agency, has collected information about the cost of commercial fishing since the 1950’s. The efforts were intermittent and geographically sporadic until 2000 when a systematic approach was developed and supported by ongoing budgetary commitments. Information about which fisheries within each region...
In February 2010, two agreements were finalized by Federal, State, and Tribal governments and PacifiCorp, a utility company that owns dams on the Klamath River: the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) and the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (Settlement Agreement). These agreements included provisions that would affect the Klamath River Basin...
Los Islotes is the southernmost breeding site of the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) in Northern Hemisphere and represents one of the most important economic activities for the city of La Paz, Mexico. The increasing tourism activity grew without any control until researchers and organizations started to be concerned about...
We develop econometric models to jointly estimate revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) models of recreational fishing behavior and preferences using survey data from the 2007 Alaska Saltwater Sportfishing Economic Survey. The RP data are from site choice survey questions, and the SP data are from a discrete choice...
The literature on ecosystem service valuation has grown considerably in the past decade as nations around the world have moved towards adopting more holistic, systems-level frameworks to managing both marine and terrestrial resources, ones recognizing and accounting for the interconnectedness of all parts of the ecosystem. In these frameworks, economic...
It has long been argued that the Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery would benefit economically by being managed by “a system of tradable harvest permits” (Weninger and Waters 2003; Waters 2001). Between 2007 and 2010, all the major species in this fishery were transitioned into catch share management,...
In May 2016, the NOAA Science Advisory Board, Ecosystem Services and Management Working Group, submitted a report to the NOAA Administrator entitled, An Assessment of the Use and Potential Use of Ecosystem Service Valuation (ESV) within NOAA: A Report from the NOAA Science Advisory Board”. While the report covers all...
We investigated the own- and cross-price elasticity of supply (PES) of 20 fish and shellfish species, caught in mixed fisheries off southwestern Taiwan and serving the local fresh seafood market. Because the licensed fishermen face little regulation constraining their behavior, we hypothesize that they adjust their catch profiles so as...
This paper is to investigate how climate change affect fisheries resources and economic performance of fishing sector and coastal communities in the Arctic with a focus on Svalbard Fisheries Protection Zone. Climate change is projected to alter the productivity of our oceans, the distribution, abundance, composition, quality and quantity of marine...
This research incorporates unique household survey data and a discrete shift in fisheries management into a model of migration in order to analyze the drivers of outmigration in rural Alaskan communities that traditionally depend on fisheries for income. Although there is evidence that a transition to rights-based management decreases the...
The South Pacific Tuna Treaty has existed as a model of international fishery cooperation since 1988. However, in 2016, changing economic conditions led to an impasse between United States purse seine interests and the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) over payment of vessel day fees. The impasse resulted in the United...
Property rights are the foundation of institutions that shape economic decisions ranging from individual transactions to the performance of a country’s economy. The incentives generated by the institutions in place also translate into measures of vulnerability and recovery in the face of natural disasters. Using the example of Chilean fisheries...
Countries exploiting transboundary fisheries face strong incentives for over- exploitation. This basic economic insight has been validated empirically; transboundary fisheries tend to be in worse condition than fisheries in single nations. Thus, transboundary fisheries pose a significant, and globally ubiquitous, management challenge. Attempts to solve this challenge through cross-country cooperation...
Parasites and diseases represent major challenges in aquaculture. In the Norwegian salmon farming industry, costs associated with treatment of sea lice are surging and reached 5bn NOK or 10% of the industry’s total export value in 2015. In addition to the direct impact on production, sea lice affect the industry...
Maps of fishing locations are important in assessing fishery exposure to management alternatives and facilitates stakeholder outreach (e.g. the New England Fishery Management Council’s Omnibus Habitat Amendment 2, http://www.nefmc.org/library/omnibus-habitat-amendment-2 and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Amendment 16 to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan, https://www.greateratlantic.fisheries.noaa.gov/regs/2016/September/16msbamend16ea.pdf). Fishing location...
The evidence of the destructive economic and biological consequences of “bad” fisheries subsidies is now all but overwhelming. Yet still these subsidies persist, in spite of the evidence. This paper looks at ways of escaping the fisheries subsidies trap, by pursuing and developing a theme, which this author first put...
While the importance of international trade in fish products has long been recognized, international trade in fishing services (TIFS), involving harvesting, processing, transportation and marketing has received but little attention. Yet, one half of the world’s EEZs involve foreign fishing arrangements, resulting in such trade. The World Bank report, Trade...
Information on the total costs associated with commercial fishing is essential to quantitative estimation of fisheries performance measures that indicate the fleet’s economic health over time as biological, management and cost conditions change. NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) collects fixed and labor costs on a periodic basis through voluntary...
Washington state is currently developing a marine spatial plan for its outer coast under a mandate from its Legislature. One key mandate for the plan involves mapping areas that have “high potential for renewable energy production with minimal potential for conflicts with existing uses and sensitive environments.” Fisheries are a...
Early studies of economies of scale show that ownership limitations imposed large costs on salmon farming firms prior to the deregulation of the industry in 1991. Since then a number of mergers and acquisitions have taken place and the industry has become far more concentrated. Despite this, a number of...
The effects of regulations on recreational fishers are especially difficult to predict. Data lags typically prevent in-season management, so regulations restrict aspects of individual fishing activity in the hopes of achieving collective catch limits. This study began with discrete choice surveys to elicit angler preferences among various types of fishing...
Annual socio-economic surveys, pared with third-party landing monitoring data, have allowed a multi-year analysis of the economic impacts and perceptions of implementing an individual vessel quota rights-based management system in the gulf corvina (Cynoscion othonopterus) fishery. This fishery is targeted by four communities, including an indigenous one, in the Upper...
Most regulations for recreational fishing in Mexico focus primarily on offshore boat fishing. However, regulations for inshore recreational fishing in Mexico are insufficient. Every year hundreds of European and American fishermen visit Punta Allen, Mexico to practice fly-fishing. Punta Allen is a coastal village located in the Sian Ka'an Biosphere...
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the special session was: Saving the World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal. The session was organized by Oriana Poindexter.
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the special session was: Saving the World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal. The session was organized by Oriana Poindexter.
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the special session was: Saving the World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal. The session was organized by Oriana Poindexter.
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the special session was: Saving the World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal. The session was organized by Oriana Poindexter.
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the special session was: Saving the World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal. The session was organized by Oriana Poindexter.
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the special session was: Saving the World's Most Endangered Marine Mammal. The session was organized by Oriana Poindexter.
Seafood markets are the inflection point in the fish-to-food transformation, and act as windows into revealed consumer preferences for seafood selection. These preferences have far-reaching implications for fisheries management, food security, and marine conservation. This study reveals consumer preferences for seafood in San Diego County by quantifying the relationship between...