ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on September 21, 2007
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2007 64(8):1612-1613; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsm143
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Fishers' responses to management measures and their socio-economic effects
Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, 39 College Road, 142 Morse Hall, Durham, NH 03824, USA
Correspondence to A. A. Rosenberg: tel: +1 603 862 2020; fax: +1 603 862 0243; e-mail: andy.rosenberg{at}unh.edu
This session presented a wide range of papers on cooperative research, design of alternative gears and fishing strategies, and new analyses to support management. The contributed papers reflected a real desire to explore different approaches and strategies to fishery management.
It is apparent that fishery policy has had a mixed record of success and failure at best. In most regions of the world, many stocks are still being overfished or have been severely overfished in the past. Although rebuilding programmes for overfished stocks have been developed, nationally as well as internationally, only a few have been successful, many others are works in progress and, in too many cases, rebuilding programmes show little sign of success. Similarly, efforts to incorporate broader ecosystem considerations into fishery management regimes, although they have been under discussion and negotiation for some time, are making only limited progress in most regions of the world. Bycatch, habitat damage, impacts on protected species, and loss of biodiversity for marine systems, caused, at least in part, by fishing activities, remain global problems.
At the same time, the fishing industry and its operations are experiencing great stress in many ways and in many regions. In three decades, fisheries have gone from being relatively unregulated to a very high degree of regulation, and individuals, communities, and businesses are struggling to adapt to such changes. Current management policy always seems to be trying to catch up to the adaptability of fishers in finding new and more efficient ways to fish. As a result, management details change constantly, causing more stress to the industry and community. Fishing, like any business, requires a stable and predictable regulatory environment, and fisheries management is anything but stable these days.
This cycle was eloquently described by the keynote speaker of this session, Poul Degnbol, as the "death spiral of fisheries micromanagement". Not only are adaptation and increased regulation of inputs ineffective: they lose legitimacy in the eyes of the industry. The burden of making conservation work is placed on the regulatory bodies, not on the industry, and activities not outcomes become the focus. Although management has apparently become overwhelmed by the details of fishing, it should focus on the conservation of resources and the ecosystems subjected to fishing. The industry is forced to work around the regulations rather than making conservation work. A change of perspective is needed on both sides.
Cooperative research may be a means to this end. In every policy and management discussion, indeed in most science discussions, it has become de rigueur to note that better cooperation and communication is needed. Cooperative research is making improved communication a reality in some fisheries. The proximate goal is to have fishers and scientists working together as in the Northeast Consortium programme in the US, described by Chris Glass on joint research projects. In this and other programmes, there has been some notable success. Not only has the programme fostered communication, but also the research has been important and applicable to management as well. Building trust between industry and the science community has been a major issue. Beyond this, however, cooperative research can result in joint problem solving, combining the skills and creativity of scientists and fishers. Essentially, this requires that each acknowledge the skills of the other to combine knowledge effectively. In this lies the importance of trust. Several of the symposium papers explored these aspects of cooperative research directly. Of course, cooperative research is not new, but because the management environment has changed dramatically in the past few decades, such cooperation is still hard-won and feels new. It is also essential to get out of Degnbol's described downward spiral. Imagine if the management system really did focus on outcomes. Cooperative research could solve problems for fishers, allowing them to achieve outcomes profitably, rather than challenging or modifying regulatory controls.
Perhaps, more cooperative research has been done on gear modification than on any other topic in fisheries research. This is not surprising given the expertise of fishers and the interest of science in understanding the behaviour of fish, the effectiveness of fishing gear, and the impacts on non-target species. Following long experience in gear modification, these studies are also using new approaches that may contribute to a real paradigm shift in fishery management. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Smart Gear Competition described by Charlotte Mogensen highlighted one of these new approaches. The competition is a partnership between environmental groups and several fisheries agencies and groups, challenging fishers and scientists to solve bycatch problems. The awards are for innovation, but must be related to important problems and real outcomes. It is an excellent example of using creativity to solve conservation problems, rather than battling regulatory problems.
There are many motivations behind the fishing industry and management, but it is basic that fishing is an economic activity. New analyses are exploring how the economics of fishing, under various management systems, result in changes in behaviour, including papers by Anderson, Quirijns, and Poos during this session. Again, this relates to the spiral described by Degnbol. The changing economics of fishing under stringent regulation requires adaptation, even if the regulation appears unable to achieve conservation. The challenge is to turn economic motivation into successful conservation, i.e. to achieve the goals of sustainability. If management focuses on outcomes, then the motivation to support the outcomes we need, i.e. an end to overfishing, minimizing ecosystem impacts, sustained productivity of marine ecosystems, will have to be fundamentally economic. This is not an indictment of fisheries as venal, but common sense. The industry can only exist if it is economically viable and continually strives for that viability. If striving for viability also means seeking to support the societal outcomes, then management will work better. In contrast, if the incentives are to find ways to circumvent the intent of the regulations to achieve economic viability, management will continue to fail.
Finally, fisheries do not exist in a vacuum. The marine ecosystem needs to be conserved for fisheries to survive, but broader environmental problems requiring attention include those of habitat, energy use, climate change, and pollution as noted in papers by Utne and Holland. The fisheries world, made up of the fishing industry and its communities, scientists, managers, and environmental groups, is still relatively small. But ocean policy and conservation are increasingly attracting the attention of the public and policy-makers. The fisheries world should embrace, not resist, this interest. Using the creativity and innovation of fishers, scientists, managers, and environmentalists, fisheries problems can be solved, but only if that creativity is used collectively, not confrontationally.
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