Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.
Seafish has undertaken an economic impact assessment (EIA) of the landing obligation for key UK fleets targeting demersal stocks. The purpose of the EIA is to provide information that supports decision-making and understanding at a fleet segment, home nation and national level. The EIA has been undertaken in two phases:...
The positions of Japan and Australia have been in sharp contrast over whaling; Japan seeks to expand whaling and is not concerned about protecting whales while Australia attempts to halt whaling and strengthen whale conservation. In this study, we hypothesize that this sparked difference reflects different levels of willingness to...
Conflicts over the use of coastal areas are expected to increase in Norway in the future. In Northern Norway, salmon aquaculture and marine fishing tourism are expected to expand, affecting both the space available for other uses and ecosystems, including traditionally harvested fish stocks. While data is available to managers...
Overfishing has been cited as a major cause of sea bass population decline and recent scientific analyses have reinforced previous concerns of unsustainable fishing advising urgently for a substantial reduction in fishing mortality. For the first time, 2013, the ICES released an analytical advice on the status of the European...
The debate in commercial fishery management has evolved from whether well-defined rights are necessary for sustainability to evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of different rights based system designs. Two of Latin America's largest fisheries, the Chilean Jack Mackerel and Peruvian Anchovy, allocate quota at the vessel-level and restrict the lease...
This talk will introduce the special session on the Economics of Bycatch. It will provide an overview of the session. It will then discuss in general terms a variety of incentive-based approaches to managing bycatch that give vessels greater flexibility to devise cost-effective solutions of their own making. These include...
Access to credit has been identified as a crucial tool in increasing fish production in the developing countries like Nigeria. Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) was established for the purpose of boosting agricultural production (fish production inclusive). It is, therefore, imperative to study the Influence of Agricultural Credit Guarantee...
This study proposes three methods for technical efficiency (TE) estimation using three different fish stock proxy measures while applying the stochastic production frontier (SPF) approach. We apply these methods to two Vietnamese offshore fisheries, gillnet and hand-line, for which measures of stock abundance are unavailable. Based on the assumption of...
Fishing is the most dangerous job in the United States. When fisheries management creates the incentive to "race for fish", a fishing season can be reduced to only a few days and involve around-the-clock fishing in life-threatening weather conditions. Overloaded vessels, ignoring maintenance problems on vessels, and fishing in dangerous...
As the demand for sustainably caught seafood increases, market actors are increasingly interested in engaging with initiatives to increase the sustainability of their supply chains. Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) have been implemented in many parts of the world and are a way by which retailers and their 1st and 2nd...
The Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) is a treasured catch for both commercial and recreational fishers at the Baltic Sea. Especially in Tornionjoki river, which is one of the two remaining wild salmon rivers at the Finnish coast of Baltic, recreational fishing is an increasingly popular activity, and a source of...
After thirty years of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in Europe, its limitations in relation to environmental and socio-economic aspects have been well-documented. The STEFC identified some reasons that contribute to poor socio-economic performance due to environmental factors (e.g. reduced TACs and quotas for several key stocks, scarcity of some...
This paper highlights the fishing industry's views on economic impact assessments related to fisheries, and in particular the Scottish Government's assessment accompanying the MPA Consultation. The industry felt this assessment was incomplete, failed to recognise the true impacts on fishermen affected and failed to acknowledge local impacts on communities. We...
Subsidies are most often discussed within global fora (such as the World Trade Organization) in terms of concerns over trade distortions, if some countries gain an unfair advantage, through their subsidies, over unsubsidized industry elsewhere. In fisheries, this concern is matched by an environmental argument – that fish stock depletion...
Over a billion people on our planet suffer from a lack of food and another two billion have nutritional deficiencies. By 2050, global food production will need to increase by between 70 and 100 percent to feed a growing global population. Small-scale fisheries play a critical role in food security...
The oyster culture sector in France is facing since 2008 a crisis due to over-mortalities of spat, strongly related to the virus OsHV1-μvar. The consequence is a large decrease in total production, from 111,000 T in 2007 to 80,000 T in 2014. This communication is focusing the consequences on the...
This paper considers social wellbeing in the context of three dimensions; material conditions, quality of life, and sustainability dimensions to explore the key factors that affect the wellbeing of fishers in the Western Region of Ghana using 119 respondents. The study first considers descriptive analysis to assess the correlation between...
This document provides an overview of a presentation held during the Industry and Policy Day at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The presentation was part of Session A4: Global Market: Connections and Prospective Opportunities. The session was chaired by Maarten Mens, and the presentation was given by...
The fish auction markets have proven important in the development of the Icelandic fish industry from the time of their establishment in Iceland in 1987, evening out short run catch variations, allowing for specialization and contributing to increased value creation in the value chain for fish and fish products. This...
Recently, several studies have investigated price behaviors of aquaculture and wild fisheries products and related the differences in price fluctuations to production technology, and environmental shocks. Researchers have also documented the evidence of asymmetric price responses along the supply chain of seafood products; however, a feature that has received little...
One way to evaluate the bio-economic performance of fisheries is to base the decision to harvest on whether there is a benefit from leaving particular sizes of fish to reproduce or sell them today at market price. This takes into account both size-dependent fecundity and size-dependent pricing, two commonly overlooked...
Granting catch shares to cooperatives is a fisheries management option that has been widely applied. Although fishery cooperatives systems around the world are structured in various ways, it appears that most share the characteristic that members of the same cooperative are jointly and severally liable for not exceeding collectively assigned...
This study attempts to design MPAs to manage sea cucumbers in the coastal waters of Sri Lanka. A bio-economic model developed by Stefansson and Rosenberg (2005) was used in this study. In model simulation, area between 080170 - 060 500 N and 810 250 - 820 was considered and this...
Background: Commercial fishing is one of the most hazardous industries in the US. The occupational fatality rate in 2014 was 80.8/100,000 full-time equivalent workers, nearly 25 times higher than the national average for all workers. The purpose of this study was to identify causes and contributing factors of fatalities to...
The agrofood sector is the first activity of the manufacturing industry in Europe, representing 14.6% of the total revenue and a value of more than € 1,048,000 mill. in 2014. Nevertheless, this economic subbranch is characterised by lower investment in R&D,the 0.53% level in 2009, than food and manufacturing industries...
The declining price anomaly for sequential sales of identical commodities challenges auction theory which predicts constant prices within a day. Among hypotheses explaining the phenomenon stands the dual value of goods including a risk premium in early transactions. We consider that asymmetric bidder groups and shortage periods may also affect...
The recent history of fisheries management in New England has seen substantial interannual variability in total allowable catches (TACs), with stocks deemed healthy in one year retroactively identified as overfished soon thereafter. Concurrently, avenues for and examples of coordination between fishermen are increasing in the region, as exemplified by the...
We investigate how individual preferences affect noncompliance in fisheries. We use data from a combined web-based experiment and survey of Norwegian fishermen to empirically analyze this. In the economic experiment, the participants won real money in a set of lotteries based on their answers and lottery outcomes. Based on the...
Depleted fish stocks and habitat degradation associated with human activity, particularly fishing, are both the subject of increasing concern and research. Harvest control rules and no-take marine reserves are two management approaches regularly advocated as effective means of restoring depleted fish stocks and preventing fishery collapse. We incorporate these two...
The implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) requires scientific advice in many different fields such as marine biology, marine ecology and fishery economics. A wide range of fisheries data needed for scientific advice is collected, managed and made available by the Member States...
Fuel costs are one of the main cost items fishing fleets have to face, even when fuel prices for the fishing sector are often lower than public prices, as in many other production sectors. Fuel prices paid by the fishing sector are often exempted of certain taxes. Fuel subsidies, such...
The paper devises an integrated ecological–economics–social model to assess the implementation of ecosystem-based fisheries management in the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) in the South China Sea (SCS). In particular, this paper presents the development of an integrated model, which links a regional economics social accounting matrix (SAM) model to an ecological...
Aquaculture has been the world's fastest growing food production technology in recent decades and the effects of its developments are felt in seafood markets worldwide. As a result, fishermen face an additional challenge that has the potential to impact their choice of whether to reduce participation, what species to target,...
Bycatch in fishing gear remains the greatest single cause of serious injury and mortality for marine mammals worldwide. There are multiple challenges in reducing this bycatch, including assessment of the level of bycatch and its impact on the population, designing measures that effectively reduce bycatch while maintaining a viable fishery,...
This presentation provides an overview of a Special Session presentation held at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The registration number and title of the special session were 5334: Improving Food Security and Reducing Poverty through Intra-regional Fish Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa. The session was organized and chaired...
The parrotfish and lobster fisheries play important ecological functions. Besides the ecological functions, the fisheries are important market assets exploited for food and income and cater for different markets. Because of the differences in the value of the two fisheries, competitive strategies employed by fishers and traders and the implications...
This document provides a summary of a Special Session held at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The title of the special session was: Gender Research as a New Frontier in Fisheries and Aquaculture Economics: In the Footsteps of Rosemary Firth. The session was organized by Meryl Williams.
The paper explores the characteristics of fishing industry and multi-goals pursued through the legal regimes and policies on Chinese fishing industry, and analyses some problems with the existing legal regimes on fishing.It is concluded:
(1) that fishing licensing system needs to be reformed under the theories of property law and...
The world's fisheries are a critical piece of the world's food supply, providing an important source of protein for billions of people and employing millions in the process. From a human perspective, it is important that fish stocks around the globe be managed in ways that can continue to provide...
This study analyzes the relationship between annual growth in the production of the major aquaculture countries and the quality of institutions in those countries over the last three decades (1984- 2013). Seventy-four aquaculture countries from five different regions - Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania - were selected for...
Gulf of Mexico oyster safety is a significant health issue, ranking as the fourth leading cause of foodborne death in the United States. Seafood traceability is an approach that can be used to increase oyster safety. Traceability is the ability to follow seafood through all stages of production, processing and...
This paper explores the optimal management strategies of two species with different life history traits. Here we consider a prey-predator relationship which may represent a resident species and an invasive species. They have different life history traits and interact by competing food and space and predation in the same ecosystem....
This presentation provides an overview of a keynote presentation given during a plenary session of the Industry and Policy Day held at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The session was chaired by Hazel Curtis and the presentation was given by Ernesto Penas Lado.
This study uses cross-sectional data collected from 320 fish farmers across four fish farming regions (Greater Accra, Volta, Ashanti and Western) in Ghana to evaluate the impact of Fish Farmers' Associations on their technical efficiency levels and yield. We considered the stochastic frontier technique to analyse the technical efficiency levels...
This presentation provides an overview of a presentation held during the Industry and Policy Day held at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The presentation was part of Session B4: LO - Government Solutions. The session was chaired by Professor Gil Sylvia and the presentation was given by...
There is increasing recognition that the oceans of the world support a wide range of economic sectors. Managing those multiple uses, within a ‘commons’ environment, is undoubtedly challenging. Approaches of ecosystem-based management (EBM), integrated ocean management (IOM) and marine spatial planning (MSP), with associated aspects of spatial allocation and conflict...
In the Pacific Northwest of the United States, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to restore upland stream habitat for salmon populations listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Despite this sizable financial commitment to salmon population recovery, in practice, the restoration projects selected for implementation are often...
This paper analyzes the equity consequences of different fishing quota distributions among artisanal fisher organizations. We develop a basic model to analyze optimal decisions with a collective fishing rights system. With this model as a conceptual framework, using a Theil index as a distributive measure, and employing optimization techniques we...
Impact assessments (IA) are a requirement for all new European Union regulations. A central part is the analysis of social and economic impacts. For fisheries regulation the European Commission is responsible to provide the IA to a board within the EC. They are not doing the analytical assessments and data...
The value chain for the sea cucumber fishing industry in Sri Lanka was analyzed using the data collected by interviewing the main actors of the chain from February to December 2014. Divers, buyers, processors and exporters are the main actors in the value chain. Divers are the key upstream players...
This paper addresses adverse incentives built into the process of TAC setting as an instrument to prevent overfishing in multispecies fisheries. Under the Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA), the primary law governing marine fisheries management in U.S. federal waters, regional Fishery Management Councils must develop a rebuilding plan for every overfished...
The seafood industry in Norway relies on selling most of its production output in a global market. The Norwegian Krone is a vulnerable currency subject to frequent fluctuations, in recent years especially in connection with developments in the crude oil price. The Norwegian seafood industry's competitiveness is sensitive to changes...
Regulating fishing trough overall catch limits, sometimes referred to as olympic fishing, has been heavily criticized by fisheries economists for its unhealthy incentives for overcapacity, excessive costs, quantity focus and uneven supply patterns. In spite of this the Icelandic government opened an olympic style coastal fishery for small scale vessels...
Fish products are among the most highly-traded commodities. The proportion of fish harvests that is internationally traded has steadily risen over time. As a result, trade has become a key driver of the dynamics of local fisheries, with a range of ecological, economic and social impacts. This paper reports empirical...
The contribution of aquaculture and/or fisheries to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) directly or indirectly are essential indicators for policymakers to assess the sector's economic performance and make informed policies or decisions that can affect the level of political and financial support to the sector, and hence, its development pace. Despite...
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...
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)...
In the present paper we study effect of information uncertainty on efficiency of multispecies fishery contracts, when private harvesting costs are uncertain. A static game between a principal and two fishing fleets is considered, when fishermen are completely selective about allocation of their harvesting efforts between the commercial and non-commercial...
A major revision of the CFP for the period 2013-2022 was the introduction of a landing obligation (LO) of all fish caught. Contrary to f. ex. Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands the EU has conducted a regime where it was forbidden to keep fish below a certain size on...
This document provides a summary of a Special Session held at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The registration number and title of the special session were 5300: Measuring and Managing Risk-taking and Safety in Commercial Fishing. The session was organized by Lisa Pfeiffer. The report includes details...
In this paper, we measure demand characteristics for imported cod products in Portugal. Portugal imports cod primarily in three forms; frozen, salted and salted & dried but consumption of cod is primarily salted & dried product. Norway is the major producer and exporter of salted & dried cod but Portugal...
In this study, socio-economic structure of fishermen in Samsun Shelf Area was investigated between January 2014 and May 2015. Questionnaires were applied to 42 fishermen by visiting the region three times. At the end of the study, the age distribution of the fishermen were mentioned between 29 and 69 years;...
Scholars of natural resource systems increasingly refer to ‘governance’ as a crucial steering activity for sustainable management of natural resources. It is now common practice to speak of ‘ocean governance’, ‘coastal governance’, and ‘fisheries governance’. Within governance, sustainability and decentralization are two major factors that underpin the success of governance...
We develop a model of a multinational firm producing commodities for a global market in multiple locations with location-specific risks and different regulatory standards. Salmon aquaculture and disease outbreaks provide an empirically relevant example. We specifically examine details of the infectious salmon anemia outbreak in Chile in the late 2000s,...
The seafood sector has been followed and presented through different data collected as for example by FAO over several years. Often these studies are globally and/or macro-oriented market and even though these studies clearly add insight and understanding they do not provide the details needed for assessing the different sectors...
The rapidly changing production processes in aquaculture has required large investments from fish framers, and over the last decades the demand for insurance to share and cover the risks involved has increased significantly within the aquaculture sector. On the other side, the availability of commercial aquaculture insurance is not widespread,...
Each year, over 20,000 metric tons of tuna are supplied to the Japanese market, of which 40% are caught by domestic vessels. Although the Japanese tuna market is large, little is known about the supply chain and the Japanese tuna fisheries’ behaviors. In this study, we investigate how Bluefin tuna...
This document provides a summary of a Special Session held at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The registration number and title of the special session were 5310: Fishing Cost Data Collection and Implications in Fisheries Management. The session was organized by Minling Pan. The report includes details...
Background: Fish are an important part of a well-balanced diet as it contains high quality proteins, as well as polyunsaturated fatty acids that are known to play an important role in human health. Consumption of fish, however, is the primary route of exposure to methylmercury in humans. A quantitative risk-benefit...
This document provides an overview of a presentation held during the Industry and Policy Day at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The presentation was part of Session A2: Market Implications and Possible Solutions: Certification, Ethics and Social Responsibility. The session was chaired by Maarten Mens, and the...
Two thirds of seafood consumed in EU is imported. The EU capture fisheries sector has been stable during the last few years but EU aquaculture has declined. The EU capture fish industry has its main challenges related to the supply of fish because of overfished stocks and extreme seasonality of...
Retailers and suppliers of seafood are concerned about assured supply and their broader reputation with consumers. In theory, these concerns align with efforts to manage fisheries sustainably and reduce their environmental and social impacts. Hence engaging seafood supply chains more actively in fisheries management should help improve the fisheries in...
An understanding of fishers' decisions to exit or stay in a fishery is important for developing effective policy measures. In this study, we analyze the factors influencing this decision using a large administrative database covering the entire Swedish fisher population, their family ties, and detailed labour market data spanning two...
Future changes in Arctic marine ecosystems will depend as much on global climate change as on our ability to regulate and manage exploitation pressure at sustainable levels. There is a lack of integrated, cross-sectoral ecosystem-based analysis of the Arctic marine management. The analysis is on both the choices for implementing...
Due to establishment of five international organizations for tuna fisheries, tuna fishing in high seas are consequentially transformed from a time of free competition to a time of cooperative competition on the platforms created by those international organizations. The paper explores the openness, procedures of decision-making, allocation of fishing quotas...
The paper presents a vessel level simulation model of the impact of a landing obligation on a typical Scottish demersal trawler under a discard ban in addition to existing quota management controls. The simulation model is based on a simple microeconomic model of firm behaviour and predicts landings, discards and...
In 2009 the World Bank published a study of the economic performance of the global marine fishery pertaining to the base year 2004. The key finding of this study was that the global fishery in 2004 was economically and biologically highly inefficient. More precisely, the difference between attainable and actual...
In multi-species fisheries, technical and social interactions between different components of the fisheries can make it difficult to maximize economic yield. Furthermore, the different fish stocks contributing to the overall catch may present different levels of natural variability leading to difficulties in determining optimal management strategies. Bio-economic performances of multi-species...
Demand for unshelled oysters has recently risen in Japan as oyster bars gain popularity among consumers. This study undertook consumer preference research to evaluate a new brand of unspawned oysters, Amakoro, compared with conventional oysters. We surveyed the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for both oyster types as well as consumers evaluation of...
With the creation of multi-species catch share programs, halibut bycatch reduction efforts, and through actions to reduce Chinook and chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska pollock fisheries, we have seen a variety of new bycatch management programs implemented over the last decade in Alaska. The...
This document provides an overview of a presentation held during the Industry and Policy Day at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The presentation was part of Session B2: Implementing the Landing Obligation in the Reformed CFP - Practical Challenges and Effects on Fishing Businesses - 2016 Story...
The management of internationally shared fish stocks is a major economic, environmental and political issue. According to international law, these resources should be managed cooperatively under international fisheries agreements (IFAs). This paper studies the formation and stability of IFAs through a coalition game that accounts for both direct consumptive values...
In the European market for fish European producers compete with international imports which often can be produced at lower costs. That is why imports of fish are gaining market shares and an economically sustainable production of fish in Europe is frequently questioned. When aiming at increasing European production, consumers play...
This paper studies whether and under what circumstances, individual fishing decisions in aggregate match the maximum economic yield (MEY) or maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of a fishery. Under experimental economic conditions we provided participants a fleet of boats with a constant marginal cost and a non-linear revenue function. We explore...
Recreational fishing 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 discards. These restrictions may have significant effects on angler...
This document provides an overview of a presentation held during the Industry and Policy Day at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The presentation was part of Session B2: Implementing the Landing Obligation in the Reformed CFP - Practical Challenges and Effects on Fishing Businesses - 2016 Story...
In 2014, developing countries were responsible for 56.5% of total value of seafood imported by the EU; however, their import value only grew 56% relative to 1999. During the same period, China, gained over 300% growth in this market. The EU’s General System of Preferences (GSP) scheme provides duty-free or...
The literature related to valuing the protection of threatened and endangered marine species using stated preference non-market valuation methods is summarized and examined. This includes an evaluation of the suitability of existing threatened, endangered, and rare marine species values as inputs for the analysis of marine and coastal policies, and...
Aotearoa New Zealand has a long running and well managed quota management system for its fisheries, yet still faces challenges in terms of designing and implementing integrated ecosystem based approaches. Two recent processes have challenged the norm. In the Te Korowai case, issues surrounding the coastal marine environment were managed...
In late 18th century Britain, Adam Smith was the most influential thinker and writer to offer policy advice on fishery subsidies. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith scoffed at the so-called white herring bounties. He used data from 1771-1781 to argue that the bounties had raised the price of locally-caught...
Rights based management (RBM) regimes in fisheries might prevent the rent-dissipation associated with open access as fishers are enabled to coordinate efforts. In this article, I empirically explore the effects of introducing two spatially distinct RBM reforms in the Swedish shrimp fishery at two different points in time during the...
Given the complex and often opaque nature of seafood supply chains, port cities can serve as checkpoints within supply chains to address illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) seafood commodities. Harmonized systems (HS) codes are used at port cities by customs officials to monitor commerce. Concern about IUU activity in capture...
This study examines price formation of the internationally traded salmon futures exchange. The results show that the futures market price provides the expected role of leading the spot market price. Further, the futures market is efficient but hindered by the presence of risk premium that biases the forecast ability. The...
The US Pacific Whiting fishery is a large industrial fishery with landings over 260 thousand metric tons valued at $64 million in 2014. A catch share system was implemented in the fishery in 2011 with IFQs for shoreside vessels and allocations to a mothership and a catcher-processor cooperative. Bycatch is...
This document provides an overview of a presentation held during the Industry and Policy Day at the IIFET 2016 Scotland conference in July 2016. The presentation was part of Session B1: Experiences from Further Afield. The session was chaired by Professor Clara Ulrich, and the presentation was given by Gil...
The paper will focus on the Northern Adriatic Smoot clams (Callista chione) fishery, called in Italy "fasolari". The Italian production of "fasolari" takes place mainly in Friuli and Veneto regions, located in the Northern Adriatic area. Here the system (based on a co-management approach) is a very good example of...
I first of all sketch a picture of the importance of fisheries to people and argue that our interactions with fish stocks, for the most part, are currently unsustainable. Next, I identify the provision of capacity-enhancing subsidies by governments or what has been described as ‘harmful' or ‘bad' subsidies in the...
Achieving the optimal designation of marine protected areas (MPAs) and design of management measures requires a comprehensive understanding of potential socioeconomic impacts. Yet, assessing the impacts of MPAs and how they are distributed faces significant data and other evidence constraints. What role can monitoring and adaptive approaches play in MPA policy...
In Tanzania, the overall objective of the National Fisheries Policy is to develop a robust, competitive and efficient fisheries sector that contributes to food security, nutrition, growth of the national economy and improvement of the wellbeing of fisheries stakeholders. The overall goal of fisheries management is to produce sustainable biological,...