U.S. Fishery Management Councils as Ecosystem-Based Management Policy Takers and Policymakers

The United States has a new national ocean policy that adopts ecosystem-based management (EBM) as its first principle for managing U.S. ocean spaces and marine resources. However, U.S. laws that govern the uses of ocean spaces present a challenging tangle of authorities and mandates that do not easily facilitate ecosystem-based policies. For over 30 years, U.S. marine fisheries management has been guided by eight Regional Fishery Management Councils. Working under the many laws that guide setting stewardship priorities for ocean ecosystems, councils provide the Federal Government with advice on fisheries harvest levels, fish habitat protections, and fishing community needs. Implementing EBM for any ocean ecosystem requires a careful examination of the laws and policy processes that affect human interaction with that ecosystem. This article explores the U.S. perspective on federal ecosystem-based fisheries management, its part in U.S. national ocean policy, and how fishery management councils might position themselves as both EBM policymakers and policy takers for ocean resource management.     

Effective Policy Evaluation: Refining Design Processes for Coastal Ecosystem Condition Indicators

To achieve the desired outcomes of ecosystem-based or integrated coastal management, paradigm shifts must occur in all stages of the policy process. This article focuses on the evaluative stage following policy implementation, specifically on the use of coastal ecosystem condition indicators. A review of the recent literature suggests that coastal ecosystem condition indicators with too broad a scale or too narrow a scope lose utility and applicability. An analysis of these problems of scale and scope reveals that the process through which an index is designed and selected can hinder or heighten its validity. Local and diverse stakeholder input can help to ameliorate weaknesses, increasing the evaluative validity of coastal ecosystem condition indicators.     

Dedication to Peter Douglas (August 22, 1942–April 1, 2012)

Ecosystem management has been deemed a promising approach to environmental management in many settings. The ecosystem approach promises improved use of scientific information, better management coordination, and more meaningful public participation in environmental decision making. Yet, there is little evidence for how well ecosystem management efforts actually achieve their goals. This article presents an in‐depth analysis of one ecosystem management effort, the Albemarle‐Pamlico Estuarine Study (APES), which was part of the National Estuary Program. The APES failed to meet the objectives of ecosystem management in several visible ways. However, this case study reveals that the APES also had many positive results that were less visible to participants and observers. The performance of the APES is explained with reference to seven paradoxes inherent in the concept of ecosystem management. These findings have implications for appropriate expectations and evaluation of other ecosystem management efforts.     

Using Incentives to Reduce Bycatch and Discarding: Results Under the West Coast Catch Share Program

Abstract

Catch share management was implemented in the bottom trawl sector of the West Coast Groundfish fishery in 2011 to address a range of issues including high bycatch and discard rates. The catch share program was designed to remove the incentives to discard through full catch accounting, tradeable quotas, increased flexibility in fishing, and penalties for catch overages. We assess the effectiveness of the program in meeting its environmental objectives by comparing discard weights, proportions, and variability from 2004–2010 with 2011–2016. We analyzed these metrics for species managed using quota, including historically overfished stocks, as well as for non-quota species caught in the fishery. Discard amounts decreased over time for all species and declined to historic lows after the implementation of the program, remaining low through 2016 with much less inter-annual variability. Mean annual discards of two highly-targeted quota species, sablefish and Dover sole, showed the greatest decreases, falling by 97 and 86%, respectively. The discard proportion of overfished quota species fell by 50% on average. The unanticipated decline in discards of non-quota species as well as the decreased variability in discard amounts for all species indicate that the incentives produced by catch share management provided additional ecosystem benefits.     

Fisheries Management for California Dungeness Crab—Adapting to Change

The Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) fishery, economically robust in California while other fisheries are depressed, is under pressure to develop new management tools. The California Legislature and responsible state agencies have responded to each new crisis in the fishery with revised management regulations that are unwieldy in adapting to changing conditions. Some fishermen are displaced, while others benefit. This then leads to the next set of challenges and reactions. The differing economic needs of processors and fishermen, large and smaller producers, and northern and southern fishermen, plus the agendas of influential nongovernmental organizations, produce advocacies for conflicting management options, hindering progress toward resolution. The Legislature wants guidance from the fishery, but the fishery does not speak with one voice. Alternative dispute resolution can help these diverse but interdependent interests move toward agreement on new management tools. The principles of adaptive management—gathering information, setting goals, predicting outcomes, monitoring and evaluating results toward obtaining such outcomes, then reviewing what worked and what failed—can lead to more economically and socially optimal outcomes.     

Discontinuities in Priorities and Policies in the Development of a Regional Fishery in Scotland

The dilemmas of competing priorities in a development situation are examined in terms of the impact of a highly commercial lobster fishery on a small-scale traditional fishery in the outer Hebrides, Scotland. United Kingdom Government policy in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is aime at retaining population in marginal areas, and do this end a considerable capital investment has been made in buildings up the Hebridean lobster fishery. These policy priorities, however, are unaccompanied by any policy of resource management or conversation. The presence of a highly commercial fishery in the area thus results not only in a depletion of the lobster stocks but endangers the long-term benefits of the initial Government investment. The different work cycles ans gross earnings of the two fisheries are compared and suggestions are made as to alternative policies that would ensure the future viability of the newly developed regional fishery.     

Adapting to Catch Shares: Perspectives of West Coast Groundfish Trawl Participants

Abstract

Catch share programs are used in fisheries management to meet goals such as species recovery, overcapacity reduction, and economic efficiency. Anticipated impacts include fleet consolidation, infrastructure reduction, and social disruption within communities. The Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Social Study (PCGFSS) aims to understand social changes related to the recently implemented West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program. In this article, we use a subset of PCGFSS data to explore the ways remaining fishery participants have thus far adapted to catch shares. While some vessels have left the fishery, we found that many participants are adapting to this catch shares program despite challenges. Quota leasing strategies, fishery diversification, gear innovation, and community quota funds are some of the tools participants are using to continue operating under the catch shares program. These early challenges and adaptations to the catch share program are worthy of continued tracking, as researchers, managers, and fishing communities, would benefit by considering first-hand perspectives of the on-the-ground realities of harvesting groundfish in the rationalized fishery.     

Book review

Since society values both, it is desirable to implement management solutions that protect these species while minimizing social and economic impact, even if it is not required by law. This case study analyzed management issues relating to sea turtle bycatch in a small-scale gillnet fishery that targets flounder in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina. A primary goal of this research was to examine the feasibility of achieving both biological and social objec­tives by determining if any compatibility existed between those different objectives. This was done by cross-referencing quantitative social data with management measures that would achieve biological goals. Qualitative data also provided insight into scientific issues, obstacles to management effectiveness, and potential solutions. Overall, this article discusses the possibility of implementing solutions that reflect multiple societal values while operating under the Endangered Species Act.     

我国海洋渔业装备亟待升级

海洋渔业装备作为渔业生产的重要载体．是渔业和船舶科技发展水平的集中体现。我国是世界第一渔业大国也是第一渔船大国,但渔业装备整体水平落后。这不仅严重影响我国海洋渔业的发展,也使我国的海洋权益受到威胁。对此,业内专家强烈呼吁．大力发展远洋渔业是解决我国资源日益短缺、保障我国可持续发展的重要战略措施。     

The First Step for the Environmental Management of Australian Beaches: Establishing an Effective Policy Framework

Beach management and coastal management are interwoven and scale-dependent activities in Australia. Present coastal policies are broad and designed for large, national, and statewide scales. They specify ecologically sustainable development as the overarching goal for coastal management and provide the context for beach management. On smaller scales, an approach focusing on the reduction of geomorphic hazards as the basis of beach management was established by the Coastline Hazard Policy, with nonhazard aspects of beach management such as ecological, economic, and social concerns assuming secondary importance. Although beach management can occur effectively under these coastal management arrangements, better guidance is required to make this process as effective and efficient as possible. This guidance - the policy framework - could be better developed for beach management and better integrated with existing coastal management arrangements. While this policy development is not strictly necessary to achieve positive outcomes from beach management, it is necessary to effectively guide implementation of the existing broad coastal policies. Effective goals for beach management are yet to be thought out and clearly articulated in Australia. A good start would be to couple the present goals of ecologically sustainable development and hazards reduction into a coherent goal for beach management. A specific policy for beaches should be developed given the importance of beaches in Australia.     

Social Networks of Alaska Fishing Communities

Fishing community social networks function as channels for transfer of fishery knowledge, resources, and business transactions that help mitigate risks and shocks associated with altered access to fishery resources. Research on such networks in Alaska is limited despite their cultural importance and community reliance on fisheries. We contribute to scholarship of fishery social networks by assessing Alaska fishing community perspectives of challenges related to fisheries policy and management, and the existing social networks that aid in overcoming these challenges. Our findings show that the greatest challenges fishing communities face pertaining to fishery management are high costs of participating in catch share programs, restricted subsistence fishing activity due to decline in salmon, and complex regulations. Social networks exist for coping with these challenges; fishery information, and resources such as food, fuel and medicines are shared between communities. However, networks for accessing fishery support services are centralized in fewer larger communities and hubs such as Anchorage. Smaller and remote communities are the most compromised in this regard given the distance they must travel to access fishery support services. Leveraging social networks for sharing resources and improving fishery support services in smaller communities will increase their adaptive capacity and ability to maintain participation in Alaska fisheries.     

Dynamics and fishery of the Peruvian hake: Between nature and man

Mean length in the catch of Peruvian hake (Merluccius gayi peruanus) declined drastically by 8 cm in a few months in 1992. The 1991–93 El Niño event marked the beginning of changes in bottom environmental conditions, that along with other changes in the ecosystem, were the cause of the disappearance of large sized old hake from the traditional fishing grounds and the invasion of these areas by high concentrations of small sized young hake, traditionally distributed in the southern areas. A misinterpretation of this change gave an optimistic perception of the state of the stock, leading to a large increase of the fishing fleet and therefore to an increase of the fishing pressure on this resource. Catch increased quickly to very high levels in 1996, the fishery indicators of relative abundance remained stable, while global abundance of hake was diminishing. The resource responded to these natural variations of environment and to the intense fishing pressure with changes in some aspects of its biology and ecology. The most remarkable was the decrease of the length and age at first maturity that led to spawning by 1 year old (19 cm) individuals in a species whose observed longevity was 14 years.In 2002 a total and indefinite fishery closure was established by the Peruvian government and a technical commission for the hake recovery was created, which carried out continuous monitoring of the stock. After a closure of 20 months the indicators showed signs of recovery and the fishery was reopened in 2004. However, after an encouraging beginning during 2004 and the first quarter of 2005, neither abundance nor age structure had improved by the end of 2005, and in fact were deteriorating by the start of 2006. The survival of the age 2 and 3 groups was very low and few 4+ years old individuals were observed. Several factors working at different time scales have been proposed to explain the status of hake. The impact of the fishery, variations in the abiotic environment, predation by the jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) and cannibalism were considered as potential causal factors of this decline.     

Considering “Coastal Carbon” in Existing U.S. Federal Statutes and Policies

Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrasses provide important ecosystem services, including nursery habitat for fish, shoreline protection, and the recently recognized service of carbon sequestration and storage. When these wetland ecosystems are degraded or destroyed, the carbon can be released to the atmosphere, where it adds to the concentration of greenhouses gases (GHGs) that contribute to climate change. Many federal statutes and policies specifically require that impacts on ecosystem services be considered in policy implementation. Yet, no federal statute, regulation, or policy accounts directly for the carbon held in coastal habitats. There are a number of federal statutes and policies for which coastal carbon ecosystem services could reasonably be added to environmental and ecosystem considerations already implemented. We look at a subset of these statutes and policies to illustrate how coastal carbon ecosystem services and values might affect the implementation and outcomes of such statutes generally. We identify key steps for the inclusion of the ecosystem services of coastal habitats into the implementation of existing federal policies without statutory changes; doing so would increase the degree to which these policies consider the full economic and ecological impacts of policy actions.     

Community Fishery Resources Management on Malalison Island,Philippines: R & D Framework,Interventions, and Policy Implications

In 1991, the Aquaculture Department of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center launched a community-based fishery resources management project on Malalison Island, in central Philippines, to help conserve the country's marine resources and to help the fisherfolk rise above their poverty. The eight-year project integrated various disciplines in biology, economics, sociology, public administration, and engineering in its study of fishery resources and fishing communities and in evolving intervention strategies for resource conservation and management, and for community development. The project's most important accomplishment was the inculcation among the fisherfolk of the importance of resource conservation and management. The most important lesson learned was that an enlightened and empowered fisherfolk could be effective managers and responsible users of fishery resources.     

我国渔业物流船队的发展历程与经验启示

发展海洋渔业可以缓解国家粮食安全压力,拓宽中国海洋渔业发展空间,维护国家海洋权益。专业化渔业物流船队是保障和支撑海洋渔业发展的重要组成部分,文章从不同的服务对象角度对渔业物流船队进行了划分,详细介绍了各类型渔业物流船队的发展历程、主要做法和取得的成效,指出了我国的渔业物流船船龄大,装备陈旧,自动化程度低和信息化水平弱等严重制约我国渔业物流船队发展的问题,提出了全面推进渔业物流船队的专业化建设、推动渔业物流船装备自动化革新、提升渔业物流船的信息化水平等实现渔业现代化的经验启示。     

Challenges in Collaborative Governance for Coastal Restoration: Lessons from the Caernarvon River Diversion in Louisiana

In an effort to restore deteriorating coastal wetlands in Breton Sound, Louisiana, a diversion of Mississippi River water into the estuarine ecosystem has been operated at Caernarvon, Louisiana, since 1991. The diversion was implemented after a relatively long collaborative planning process beginning in the 1950s. The Caernarvon Interagency Advisory Committee, an official panel of stakeholders, considers scientific aspects of the freshwater inflow and stakeholder inputs in developing an operational plan, which internalizes stakeholder conflicts, while accomplishing goals of restoring the coastal ecosystem. Even though fishery representatives are committee members, local oyster fishers filed lawsuits in federal and state courts from 1994 through 2005, claiming damages to their oyster beds. These lawsuits were initially successful in state courts but were reversed by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The federal suits were unsuccessful. Following these lawsuits, voters in Louisiana in 2000 amended the State Constitution to protect coastal restoration projects against lawsuits reflecting increase in overall statewide support. Increasing scientific knowledge has contributed significantly to diversion operation. For better collaborative governance, efforts to increase common understanding among stakeholders will be needed, and a process to compensate interests of stakeholders suffering from impacts of restoration projects at an earlier stage should be institutionalized.     

Learning from Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice

We explore how marine ecosystem–based management (EBM) is translated from theory to practice at six sites with varying ecological and institutional contexts. Based on these case studies, we report on the goals, strategies, and outcomes of each project and what we can learn from these efforts to guide future implementation and assessment. In particular, we focus on how projects dealt with the challenges of working across geographic scales and diverse governance arrangements. While we hypothesized that EBM in the United States would be distinct from EBM in developing countries due to differences in social and political factors, we found that sites faced similar challenges. Variation among sites appeared to be more closely related to the preexisting management context and the scale at which the projects began rather than to clear differences between the United States and developing country contexts. EBM project implementers were able to overcome many of these challenges by focusing on a limited number of specific objectives, starting at a small scale, pursuing adaptive management, and monitoring a diverse set of indicators. These findings are directly relevant to current and future EBM efforts in these and other places.     

Sustainability Challenges in the Geoduck Clam Fishery of British Columbia: Policy Perspectives

The geoduck clam fishery, worth approximately CDN $40 million ¹ US $ equivalence: 35 million (Bank of Canada exchange rate on February 1, 2006). in annual landed value, is British Columbia's most valuable invertebrate fishery. This fishery has been co-managed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Underwater Harvesters Association (UHA) since 1989. Earlier input control measures such as effort regulation, seasonal closures, and licenses failed to work effectively for more than ten years, resulting in excess fishing capacity, over harvesting, poor economic returns, and unsafe fishing practices. Output control measures such as the individual vessel quota system (IVQ) have, to some extent, proven successful in improving revenues, controlling excess fishing capacity, gaining compliance with regulations, and involving fishers in the joint decision-making processes. However, there are public concerns about a common property resource at risk of being dominated by a few UHA license holders. Additionally, there are concerns about the job losses resulting from IVQ implementation, as well as distribution and equity issues. This article traces and examines the policy context for fisheries management in the British Columbia (BC) geoduck fishery, discusses the major concerns surrounding the exploitation of long lived Methuselah's clams and concludes with areas for further research in sustaining this lucrative fishery.     

An Overview of Spatial Management and Marine Protected Areas in the East China Sea

Marine ecosystems of the East China Sea are rich in biodiversity, with 12,933 species of which approximately 47.7% are endemic. As anthropogenic impacts are intensifying, fishery resources and biodiversity in the East China Sea are under threat from overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, and biological invasions. Marine protected areas (MPAs) and other spatial management measures are believed useful tools to protect and restore biological resources. Seventeen nature reserves, seven special marine reserves, and three fishery resource conservation zones covering a combined area of 102,156 km² have so far been established in the Chinese East China Sea in order to protect fishery resources, biodiversity, and marine landscapes. This article provides a review and inventory of MPAs in the Chinese East China Sea as implemented by the People's Republic of China.     

Ground-truthing social vulnerability indices of Alaska fishing communities

Abstract

Community vulnerability is increasingly evaluated through quantitative social indices, typically developed using secondary data sources rather than primary data collection. It is necessary to understand the validity of these indices if they will be used to inform policy and decision making. This paper presents a ground-truthing effort to validate quantitative indices that characterize the well-being of Alaska fishing communities. We utilized ethnographic data collected from 13 representative communities and a capital assets framework to ground-truth the indices, in which qualitative ranks of vulnerability were compared against quantitative indices. The majority (73.8%) of ranks were in complete or moderate agreement and the results indicate that most of the indices are representative of community vulnerability; yet some variables utilized to create the indices could be modified to better reflect realities in Alaska. Indices of commercial fishery engagement and reliance appeared to be more reliable than socio-economic indicators, particularly for smaller fishing communities. We also confirmed that the indices do not capture political, or ecological factors that affect levels of community vulnerability. We conclude that quantitative indices of community vulnerability are useful rapid assessment tools; however, they should be validated, and complemented with ethnographic data prior to their implementation as policy making and management tools.