This document provides the abbreviated program grid showing a one-page summary of presentations made at the NAAFE Forum 2015, Economic Sustainability, Fishing Communities, and Working Waterfronts, held in Ketchikan, Alaska, May 20-22, 2015. The conference was organized by Keith Criddle and Quentin Fong, University of Alaska Fairbanks, School of Fisheries...
Many of the tangible benefits of catch share programs (e.g., reducing overcapacity) are dependent on the trading of shares. Additional trading-related questions (such as whether landings will change port or be concentrated geographically) are also important to the overall evaluation of a fishery, but are often asked only during post-implementation...
Over recent years, fisheries managers have been going through a paradigm shift to prioritize ecosystem-based management. With this comes an increasing need to better understand the impacts of fisheries management decisions on the social well-being and sustainability of fishing communities. This paper summarizes research aimed at using secondary data to...
Choosing a policy instrument is a strategic choice. In the case of fisheries interactions with marine mammals and sea turtles, the preferred policy instrument has been a command-and-control approach such as effort reductions (e.g. area closures) and/or technology standards (e.g. gear modifications), even though market based approaches are available. Since...
The traceability practices of 48 seafood businesses were assessed as part of an evaluation of nine global seafood value chains (from harvest to retail). The research was conducted through direct interviews and written surveys in order to assess the reasons why traceability systems were used to strengthen business performance. The...
During the first three years (2007-2009) of the Gulf of Mexico red snapper IFQ program most quota lease trades were local, involving fishers that lived in the same communities. In 2010, the red snapper quota lease market changed as more IFQ participants began trading quota with fishers from different regions...
Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia have all developed nutrient trading programs to defray the cost of achieving mandated nitrogen load reductions in Chesapeake Bay, and there is increasing interest in the role oysters can play in generating credits. A number of bioeconomic models highlight the impact these credits have...
The rapid pace of climate change and increased human disturbance of ecosystems in the Arctic is bringing urgency to concern over non-native species introductions and their potential threats to the marine environment and its economic productivity, where before environmental conditions served as a barrier to their establishment. The same characteristics...
From 2012 through 2013, NOAA Fisheries Service conducted a study to collect participation, effort, and expenditure information related to ocean recreation activities in the United States. This study collected information from all 50 states and the District of Columbia in six, two-month waves. There were eight ocean recreation categories of...
"Rationalization” or the change to catch share management in fisheries has been shown to lead to the slowing of fishing activity, input and effort consolidation, cost savings, as well as new market and product development. The effects of rationalization on fishermen’s behavior become more complex when one accounts for the...
The Measuring the Effects of Catch Shares Project is a webportal-based effort that continues to compile and analyze data on ecological, economic, social, and administrative changes in groundfish catch share fisheries on the West Coast and in the Northeast. The purpose of the five-year project is to make the best...
As part of an effort to describe the recent history and socioeconomics of a small commercial fishery, we were provided access to a large, multi-faceted data set. In using those data, we faced a number of challenges related to data management, data protection and confidentiality, and needed to develop effective...
Almost one half of the EEZs of the world are subject to so-called foreign fishing arrangements (FFAs), in which foreign fishing states (distant water fishing states in particular) gain access to EEZs under access arrangements with the relevant coastal states. The FFAs may take the form of “fee fishing” arrangements,...
The opening and closing of the shellfish harvest area inevitably influences the market, particularly the exvessel prices that harvesters receive. Without a better understanding of shellfish market and its behaviors, it is impractical to determine the impact of management policies on the market as well as the fishery resources. Using...
Several factors currently threaten blue crab (Callinectes sapidus) in the Chesapeake Bay. In addition to poor water quality, degraded habitat, and shifting environmental conditions, derelict gear has recently been recognized as a significant source of mortality for this economically and culturally significant species. From 2008 through 2014, commercial watermen in...
Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) groundfish fisheries are hugely productive with 2008 – 2014 harvests averaging 1.6 million tons and generating $1.95 billion annually. The BSAI also hosts a commercial halibut fishery with 2013 landings of 3,500 tons and revenues of $41.5 million. Downward trends in halibut biomass combined with continued...
Electronic monitoring (EM) systems hold promise for the future collection of fishery-dependent data, either to supplement human at-sea observers or replace them. Several pilot studies have been conducted on EM in the New England groundfish fleet, though there are still on the water operational and shore-side protocols to further test...
Fishing years 2012 -2013 brought declines in socio-economic performance for the Northeast groundfish fishery. Severe reductions in catch limits for key species such as Atlantic cod have constrained fishing behavior and declining groundfish revenues cannot be offset by non-groundfish revenues earned by the fleet. Little is known about the way...
Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) are distributed from Japan to Baja California. Alaska is the world’s principal supplier of sablefish with the majority of commercial landings occurring in the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. This demersal, long-lived fish is in one of Alaska’s highest value commercial fisheries. In terms of...
Ecosystem externalities arise when one use of an ecosystem affects its other uses through the production functions of the ecosystem. We use simulations from a size-spectrum ecosystem model to investigate the ecosystem externality created by fishing of multiple species. The model is based upon general ecological principles and is calibrated...
This research analyzes the effects that a redistributive fishing quota policy, within a collective rights quota assignment system, might have on the profits and employment of artisanal fisher organizations. The Chilean authorities have been pursuing a deliberate quota redistributive policy between ship-owners of different vessel categories. This policy has affected...
Overfishing and the destruction of small-scale fisheries in developing countries — particularly through the use of illegal fishing gear — is a pressing issue. Policymakers and local community leaders often suggest fines and enforcement mechanisms to reduce the use of illegal fishing; however, the response of fishery participants to “bans”...
Fisheries management is increasingly being conducted at finer scales of spatial resolution. The spatial distribution of fish stocks is recognized as being an important aspect of stock abundance and spatial management tools, such as marine reserves, have become common. Information on the spatial distribution of fishing effort is critical to...
The Baltic fishery is managed under the European Union Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which defines procedures for setting annual total allowable catches (TAC) for major commercially harvested species. TACs are given as fixed shares to each member state by applying the principal of relative stability. Poland uses non-tradable individual vessel...
When making policy recommendations, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council balances community stability with efficiency in resource utilization. The Council is considering an action that, for part of the year, would effectively limit the harvest of Aleutian Islands Pacific cod to vessels that deliver to a shore plant in the...
Data scarcity and weak institutional governance make the implementation of top-down, quota-based fisheries management in much of the developing world’s fisheries difficult. An alternative to quota-based management is the use of space-based rights such as territorial use rights fisheries (TURFs). In spite of wide spread use of TURFs as a...
Recreational fishing for popular species like red snapper and grouper in the Gulf of Mexico follows a pattern that is well known in commercial fisheries: fishing under regulated open access promotes short, unpredictable seasons, shrinking bag limits, and large and persistent overharvests. With federal fishing seasons at all-time lows and...
Indigenous fishing rights are partially recognized via allocation of commercial quota rights to tribes. Concern exists, however, that the allocation of commercial quota rights to indigenous groups without restrictions on how the benefits from quota holdings can be allocated and exchanged will lead to class segregation within indigenous groups. Scholars...
A brief overview of changes in the distribution of permanent entry permits in Alaska’s limited fisheries is provided in this presentation. From 1975 to 2014, 79 permit types have been issued in 65 fisheries. This presentation provides an overview of Alaska’ limited entry program, gives statewide data and some fishery-specific...
The Alaska recreational charter boat sector has undergone significant change in recent years due in part to several regulatory changes in the management of the Pacific halibut sport fishery, including a limited entry program, harvest controls specific to the charter sector, and a Catch Sharing Plan (CSP) implemented during 2014....
In this paper we study whether environmental bureaucrats share preferences for environmental policy with the general public. We use the choice experiment method to elicit preferences for improvements in coastal cod abundance along the Swedish West coast. This is done for the general public, Swedish EPA (SEPA) bureaucrats, and for...
Atlantic sea scallop fisheries in Iceland and the United States have been subject to outbreaks of ‘gray meat’, a disease caused by infestation by a new species of apicomplexan parasite that causes progressive myodegeneration of scallop meats that kills scallops and reduces recruitment. Due to reduced exvessel value, fishermen discard...
This study investigates optimal catch of Barents Sea stocks, namely Northeast Arctic Cod and Capelin in multispecies ecosystem. We solve a multispecies age structured bioeconomic model for predator-prey interaction. Barents Sea stock data from ICES are employed for model application. Among others, we also include sustainability constraint in the model...
Interest in sustainable fishing communities suggests the need to understand fishermen’s decisions about where to land fish. In this paper, we apply techniques used extensively to analyze fishing location choices to study landings location choices. We analyze detailed microdata from Norwegian groundfish vessels that land fish in fourteen different ports...
Electronic monitoring (EM) systems hold promise for the future collection of fishery-dependent data, either to supplement human at-sea observers or replace them. Several pilot studies have been conducted on EM in the New England groundfish fleet, though there are still on the water operational and shore-side protocols to further test...
The Pacific sardine fishery is shared but independently managed by three nations: Canada, USA and Mexico. As a result, potential conflict scenarios may arise. A stochastic optimal control methodology is presented to analyze potential conflict scenarios by first considering a deterministic logistic stock growth function and adding a stochastic term,...
Recreational fishing for popular species like red snapper and grouper in the Gulf of Mexico has followed a familiar pattern to that observed in many commercial fisheries: fishing under regulated open access has promoted a “race to the fish” with cascades of shorter seasons, shrinking bag limits, and significant fishery...
From 2000 onwards, the United States saw an increasing trend for the shellfish aquaculture practices especially along the Northeast coast. Despite the supporting majority of public regarding the shellfish aquaculture operations, these operations are sometimes opposed by local communities claiming the devaluation of housing property due to the construction of...
Purchases made by marine recreational anglers are an important source of economic activity in coastal areas around the United States. In recognition of the economic contributions anglers make to coastal state economies, NOAA Fisheries conducts surveys every three to five years in order to gather data on expenditures made by...
The North Atlantic U.S. groundfish and scallop processing industries are a tale of two fisheries. The groundfish processing industry has suffered a steep, almost continual decline in landings starting in 1984 that resulted in 2014 landings that were only 16% of 1983 landings. US scallop landings increased from 5 million...
Climate change and continued fishing pressure threaten to increase recruitment variability for many stocks globally. Shifts in the inter-annual stability of an exploitable renewable resource may have dramatic consequences for the industries and communities which depend upon them. In this talk, the link between resource volatility and industry structure is...
Ecologists warn that the rapid evolution occurring as a result of high-intensity commercial fishing could have potentially disastrous economic and ecological effects. The evolution of economically relevant life-history traits in fish, which can occur due to the harvesting pressure from commercial fisheries, can irreversibly diminish fisheries yields and ecological services....
Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) have been used in British Columbian fisheries management for more than 25 years. When they were implemented, few restrictions were placed on who could own or lease quota. As a result, many retiring fishermen retain quotas to lease or sell to processors and corporations rather than...
We empirically disentangle the efficiency mechanism of revenue sharing, in which a group of harvesters shares catch and/or revenue among members of a fishery cooperative, by incorporating the influence of social capital. In addition to each of revenue sharing and social capital influencing a fishery independently we hypothesize social capital...
In an environment of limited resources and expanded management expectations, fisheries regulators face hard decisions about how intensively to regulate different stocks. The Fishery Management Councils are required to regulate harvest of all stocks in a sustainable manner, but have discretion on how much regulatory effort to invest in individual...
The for-hire sector plays a significant role in providing recreational fishing opportunities for Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS) such as tuna, billfish, swordfish, and sharks. Because of the high cost of equipment needed to pursue HMS, many saltwater anglers find chartering a for-hire vessel to be the only affordable alternative....
Ecosystem services (ES) represent a way to represent and quantify multiple uses, values as well as connectivity between ecosystem processes and human well-being. Ecosystem-based fisheries management approaches may seek to quantify expected trade-offs in ecosystem services due to actions such as restoration and gear restrictions, or due to changes such...
Fishing impacts biodiversity on multiple levels, potentially resulting in unintended feedbacks to economic performance of the fishery over time. For example, targeting observable traits within a population can impact genetic diversity, targeting populations within a species can impact population diversity, and targeting valuable species can impact biodiversity at the ecosystem...
The potential economic impact of a fully developed mariculture industry in Alaska is not well understood by industry or policy makers. It is also not entirely clear what is needed to move from Alaska’s current micro industry (approximately $500,000 in annual sales) to a fully developed industry. In general, the...