While rights-based management is generally purported enhance economic efficiency in fisheries and reduce over-capitalization, the social and economic outcomes due to this regulatory regime are less comprehensively understood. Relatively recently, industrialized and export-oriented Latin American fisheries began adopting individual transferable quota (ITQ) regimes to recover collapsed fish stocks. While these...
This talk will introduce this special session on coastal and marine spatial planning (MSP). An overview of how MSP is interpreted and implemented in the United States at different geographic scales will be discussed. An emphasis on data and research needs will be given as well as context for the...
Fisheries management currently claims for fisheries governance (FG), a more balanced scheme that proposes to share the power among government, civil society and economics. In Mexico and other developing countries, the lack of operational regulations has delayed its implementation. Several authors state that topological analysis is useful to identify key...
Eco-labels have been developed to face the difficulties faced by States in managing fisheries. They promote the voluntary adoption of sustainable practices, through market differentiation of sustainably produced items. In fisheries, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the most commonly used eco-label. The label is presumed to increase the social and...
The UN Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Small-scale Fisheries, along with the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests, recognize the role of secure tenure in ensuring the livelihoods, well-being, and basic human rights of small-scale fishing (SSF) communities. Rights-based management (RBM), which works to secure...
Recently, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended that pregnant and nursing women consume at least 8 to 12 ounces of seafood per week as part of a well-balanced diet. Thus, the seafood market has been flooded with health benefit/risk information targeted at women...
Marine spatial planning (MSP) is a process that planners can use to make decisions about different, sometimes conflicting, ocean uses. The process is intended to be participatory and to facilitate the sharing of information about multiple uses of the marine environment. In the U.S. an important component of MSP is...
In the last several years a number of U.S. policies and directives have laid the foundation for Ecosystem Service Valuation (ESV) to be incorporated into ecosystem-based management (EBM), the current management paradigm for U.S. oceans and coasts. In 2010 the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force instructed...
This work reports on how resource rent is distributed among owners of exclusive fishing grounds in the spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) fishery of Punta Allen, Mexico. This MSC certified small-scale fishery is co-managed through Territorial User Rights. Members of the local fishing cooperative, have exclusive access to individual fishing grounds....
A behavioral study on fishery participation and fishing location choice for the West Coast Salmon fishermen was undertaken to determine the effect of salmon fishery closures on the distribution of fishermen across alternative fisheries and fishing locations. A dataset describing fishing trips from West Coast salmon vessels from 2005 to...
Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND), initially referred to as early mortality syndrome (EMS), is an emergent bacterial disease that has resulted in substantial economic losses for the global shrimp farming industry. Its occurrence was first reported in China in 2009, rapidly spreading to Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and eventually Mexico in...
This paper is the result of a project that began with NAAFE 2015 special session on Fisheries Certification, which asked what forces are driving the market for sustainable seafood. Many previous studies looked at consumers' demand, but in this paper we looked at the entire supply chain (from producers to...
The trans-boundary migration of fish stocks creates spatial externalities, and hence, makes international cooperation beneficial. This study provides a model for the management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks and examines the relationship between fish migrations and the benefits from cooperation. Previous studies on trans-boundary fish stock management have...
When evaluating potential government interventions economists often consider whether a proposed policy is efficient. However, changes in policy can also result in changes in wealth. When politically influential individuals or groups see losses, efficient policies can become politically infeasible even if they increase wealth in aggregate. This paper examines political...
The objective of this paper is to provide an analysis of the current state of fisheries subsidies worldwide, and how they are likely to affect the sustainability of fisheries. More specifically, I will review previous investigations of global subsidies issues, and give a brief overview of the impact of subsidies...
The goal of this research was to characterize the trade-offs between profitability and sustainability when managing a valuable commercial fishery. The Florida finfish fishery generates over $75 million in annual dockside value; the snapper-grouper complex constitutes over half of that total. Currently, federal stock assessment procedures focus on stock size...
This research combines a utility-theory consistent model of demand for recreational fishing trips with an age-structured stock dynamics model to provide policy relevant advice to managers of the groundfish fishery in the Northeast United States. We provide an overview of the model and describe the challenges encountered with using this...
The Biodiversity Impact Mitigation (BIM) hierarchy provides an overarching conservation framework for bycatch reduction, and more broadly for biodiversity conservation. This framework includes four steps, which are implemented sequentially to: (i) avoid and (ii) minimize impacts; (iii) rehabilitate/restore impacted biodiversity; and (iv), compensate such impacts, usually elsewhere. The first three steps...
The vaquita, a critically endangered marine mammal, is a bycatch to shrimp strawl and gillnet fisheries in the upper Gulf of California. Reducing vaquita bycatch, however, is complex. The fisheries are smaller-scale and major contributors of income and employment to coastal communities. Although tourism is increasingly important, fishing remains an...
This presentation provides an overview of a session presentation held at the NAAFE Forum 2017 in March, 2017. The title of the session was: Rights-Based Management. The title of the presentation was: We Need to Restore Ourselves First: The Story of El Manglito.
In this paper we characterize changes in the level and spatial distribution of fishing effort during the extreme ocean temperature event known by oceanographers, climate scientists, and the public as “the Blob.” The Blob was an unprecedented marine heatwave that occurred off of the Pacific Coast of North America from...
Achieving economic viability is an important goal when it comes to developing policies for sustainable fisheries management, especially for small-scale fisheries (SSF). SSF are vital for many coastal communities, however, often economically and politically marginalized. Here, we develop and estimate what we denote as ‘basic economic viability’ of SSF, using...
Fisheries subsidies have been roughly estimated to be as high as $35 billion worldwide, of which about $20 billion have been categorized as capacity-enhancing subsidies that directly contribute to overfishing. Since 2001, the necessity for reforming fishing subsidies has been part of the discussions in the World Trade Organization (WTO)....
Influence of the Skipper Effect in fishing efficiency of a mixed fishing fleet, looking at a Mexican case study. Understanding the factors that define technical efficiency in a fleet is a requirement to define strategies to regulate the fishing pressure. In industrial and semi-industrial fleets more weight has been given...
The Resource Evaluation and Assessment Division’s Social Sciences Branch (SSB) in the NOAA Northeast region is preparing for an external review in 2017 to evaluate its programs alignment between the strategic objectives of SSB, NEFSC, NMFS, and NOAA. In previous SSB and NEFSC wide reviews, much attention has been drawn...
The Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper IFQ Program (Program) was the first catch share management program implemented in the Gulf of Mexico. IFQ management was implemented to reduce overcapacity and eliminate the problems associated with derby style fishing. The Program was successful, the number of vessels harvesting red snapper decreased...
Management objectives of vulnerable fish species must focus on maintaining healthy population status. Hence, reference points should be constrained to ensure recruitment. We assessed bioeconomic reference points for the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), an endemic fish to the Gulf of California, reaching lengths of 2 m and 25 years. Totoaba fishing...
As anthropogenic changes interact with natural climate cycles, the variability of marine ecosystems is likely to increase. This variability influences the behaviour of fishers, which can affect the profitability and sustainability of stocks and may have wider economic and ecological effects. We use data from the US West Coast salmon...
Fishing for Pacific Hake Merluccius productus in the Gulf of California is carried out by shrimp trawlers. When the shrimp fishing season ends, these boats shift to catching Pacific Hake and other finfish. The Pacific Hake fishery is relatively new and has the potential to grow as an industry. Therefore,...
A significant proportion of catch by artisanal fishers in Ghana is sold through wealthy middle-women, known as “fish mothers,” who often pre-finance fishing trips. This study examined the determinants of catch sales through fish mothers. Data used came from artisanal fishermen at major coastal fishing communities in Ghana. The effects...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...