The Abalone Fishery in one of Victoria’s most valuable commercial fisheries and most of the catch is exported to international markets in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China). Target species consist of blacklip abalone and greenly abalone (<1% of total catch). The fishery is quota managed, and the total allowable...
The Abalone Fishery is one of Victoria's most valuable commercial fisheries and almost all of the catch is exported to international markets, predominately in Asia. An outbreak of a virus called the Abalone Viral Ganglioneuritis (AVG) decimated one third of Australia’s abalone, starting in 2005. However, there has been little...
Despite the growing popularity of culture-based fisheries (CBFs) associated with village irrigation systems (VISs) in Sri Lanka, there is little knowledge about factors that influence productivity levels. To redress this, primary data from 325 fish farming groups in two districts (Kurunegala and Anuradhapura) are used to estimate a stochastic translog...
Individual Transferable catch-Quotas (ITQs) have become a popular management tool to reduce excess competition and foster economic efficiency in marine commercial fisheries. They have increasingly been used in more complex multispecies fisheries, where the by-catch of non-targeted species is common. In these fisheries, the reduction of discards is also being...
Fisheries in Queensland, and elsewhere, are coming under increased pressure from other potential resource users for access to the resources. These include the fish resource itself (i.e. by recreational fishers), as well as encroachment on the area of the fishery through conservation based closures and onshore activities (e.g. port development)...
The Australian federal fisheries policy identifies maximising net economic returns as the primary objective of fisheries management. This has largely been interpreted as maximising the net economic yield (MEY) in fisheries. For multispecies fisheries, this has been based on maximising the net present value of total profit in the fishery...
Differences in technical efficiency of fishing vessels are often attributed to skipper skill and differences in technology. While the later can be defined in terms of the technology employed, the former is more difficult to quantify. In this paper, the contribution of technology and skipper characteristics (e.g. level of education,...
Technical efficiency (TE) measures the relationship between a vessel’s inputs to the fishing process and its outputs, with full efficiency being achieved when outputs are maximised from a given set of inputs. Inputs can be physical (e.g. the vessel, gear, engine, onboard equipment, etc.), flexible (time spent fishing, size of...
Fisheries management is characterised by multiple objectives. However, seldomly do bioeconomic models incorporate more than one or possibly two key objectives, typically profit and employment, into an analysis. There are both practical and technical reasons for this. This study considers the incorporation of eight key objectives into a bioeconomic analysis...
Recently, there has been an increasing interest among researchers on efficiency in fisheries. They have not just been focused on the analysis of the efficiency itself but also for other purposes as measures of capacity utilisation. However, often, efficiency analyses do not offer clear results regarding the sources of the...
Spatial bio-economic models are becoming increasingly important in the attempt to offer ever more dependable advice to fisheries managers. The main reason for this is the escalating interest in marine protected areas and more precisely fishing exclusion zones. As such the key issue of fishing effort dynamics needs to be...
Closed areas are often used as either temporary or permanent measures to reduce fishing pressure on stocks. A major concern, however, is what happens to the effort that was previously employed in these areas. When modelling the potential impacts of the closed areas, it is necessary to model changes in...
In the UK, individual quotas are imposed on the demersal whitefish trawl fleet. Many of the key whitefish stocks are at historically low levels, and there is pressure on the industry to adjust to remove the current excess capacity. Adjustment in the fishery is likely to favour vessels that are...
Australian Commonwealth fisheries have adopted maximum economic yield as a target reference point. A bioeconomic model has been developed for one key fishery - the Northern Prawn Fishery - and is used in the provision of management advice. The development and application of this model has highlighted some challenges for...
The Australian Harvest Strategy Policy requires that maximum economic yield (MEY) be the target in all Commonwealth managed fisheries. For multispecies fisheries, unlike single species fisheries, the optimal yield is not independent of the optimal yield of the companion species (i.e. those species with which it is caught). In fisheries...
Despite substantial technological developments over the last two decades, incidental catch of charismatic species still occurs in many world fisheries. Short of ceasing fishing activity, some bycatch is inevitable. In some cases, populations of these species are at low levels, and in several instances the species have been listed as...
Fishers are faced with multiple risks, including unpredictability of future catch rates, prices and costs. While the latter are largely beyond the control of fisheries managers, effective fisheries management should reduce uncertainty about future catches while also enhancing profitability. Different management instruments are likely to have different impacts on the...
The International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity (IPOA-Capacity) was introduced in 1999 in response to growing concerns about excessive levels of fishing capacity and its impact on global fisheries resources. While debate in academic circles has focused on appropriate ways in which to measure capacity, the...
With international efforts to develop ecosystem-based management of ocean uses, there has been a growing call for the development of integrated assessment tools, including the design of models which can be used to identify possible futures and evaluate alternative management strategies. Along with this, there is increasing recognition that such...
Days at sea restrictions were introduced in 2003 as part of the cod recovery strategy in the North Sea. The impact on the profitability of the fleet of the effort controls, however, is not immediately discernable, as the fishery was also subject to changes in costs, prices and stock conditions....