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Selected tag(s): Fisheries Management

Guiding Principles for Development of Effective Monitoring Programs

By / Bio / Published: May 3, 2011

The Guiding Principles for Development of Effective Monitoring Programs, summarized in our Catch Share Conversations fact sheet, is the result of two workshops convened by MRAG Americas and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in 2010.  The Guiding principles summarize lessons from around the world and are intended to provide fishery managers and stakeholders with guidance on the planning, design, implementation and improvement of monitoring programs.  The Guiding Principles should be a point of departure, and recognize the individuality of each fishery.  They draw upon the expertise of over two dozen national and international monitoring experts, including national and international government employees, fishing industry representatives, and monitoring company employees.  By outlining key components to consider and providing concise recommendations, the Guiding Principles can expedite and improve the design of monitoring programs. Read the entire document here.

Monitoring Principles

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New Report Provides A Roadmap for Improving Fisheries Management in New England

By / Bio / Published: April 28, 2011

As the New England Fishery Management Council completes its spring meeting today, Council members, staff and other stakeholders will head back to their homes and offices thinking about implementation of the various decisions made during the three-day meeting.

Thanks to a new report released during the Council meeting, the fisheries community in New England will also be thinking about broader steps needed to improve the overall effectiveness of our fisheries management system. The study behind the report was led by Preston Pate, a former member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and former Director of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, who presented its findings to the Council alongside Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries, Eric Schwaab.

A review of the management system was requested by Council chair John Pappalardo, a Chatham fisherman and CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, and subsequently initiated by NMFS. Strong support for both the spirit and recommendations of the report was expressed by Mr. Pappalardo and the Council, as well as Mr. Schwaab and NOAA Fisheries.

Media outlets across New England quickly covered the findings and recommendations in the report, with clear and perhaps unsurprising emphasis on the negative outcomes. And that emphasis is warranted, for although the report notes a considerable number of positive attributes of the region’s management system, the effectiveness of those elements is compromised by the negatives.

But let’s pause and take pride in what is working well in New England, and then get down to business of fixing what is not working well.

In fact, several of the positives identified in the report represent steps already underway toward rectifying the negatives. For example, the important role that managers of the 17 groundfish harvest cooperatives, i.e., “sectors”, are playing in improving collaboration and communication with management was highlighted as an encouraging recent development. This is a development that is making progress toward rectifying one of the major areas needing improvement within NMFS: better outreach and communication with industry. We should think creatively about how to make sector managers more effective in filling that role, and support them in doing so.

The report also identified cooperative research as a positive attribute of the regional management system that provides important information for management, and improves relationships among industry members, scientists and managers. Therefore, increasing cooperative research opportunities is another important strategy for improving the communication and trust deficiencies identified in the report.

The report also highlighted two challenges faced by fisheries management in New England more so than any region in the U.S.: Geography and history. The area under the jurisdiction of the New England Council has relatively high population density, and consequently high anthropogenic impacts, in the coastal region. Also, although the region is comparatively small, it includes four coastal states, so that the number of political and regulatory jurisdictions involved are relatively high compared to other regions.

Our history not only makes successful fisheries management in New England more challenging, but in some ways more important. The fishing traditions in New England are key components of our regional identity and our national heritage. Successes in the region are therefore especially symbolic nationally, and following the roadmap requested by Mr. Pappalardo, made possible by Mr. Schwaab, and delivered by Mr. Pate can help ensure greater success toward recovering and strengthening our invaluable fishing heritage moving forward.

Jake Kritzer is EDF’s Senior Marine Scientist for the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions.  He is also Vice-Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, among other advisory appointments.

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Getting More From Less: How to Set Catch Limits and Assess Stocks in Data-Poor Fisheries

By / Bio / Published: January 28, 2011

Recent changes to federal law mandate that fishery managers must implement annual catch limits and accountability measures for all U.S. fish stocks by 2011. For fisheries with sparse data, this is a significant challenge as traditional stock assessments are costly and demand large quantities of time and information. 

British Columbia fisherman collecting data (measuring fish size).

Many fisheries in the U.S. and around the world suffer from inadequate data – in fact, this may be more the rule than the exception. Moreover, there are many serious constraints to the timely assessment of stocks and to the development of annual catch limits in addition to lack of data – including stock assessment and vetting processes that cannot process available data with available resources.  

Fortunately, there are new tools available to help assess data-poor fisheries using easily gathered data and/or data already on hand. Depending upon the method used, data-poor assessment models allow fisheries scientists working in agencies, in advisory panels, and in other relevant bodies to estimate current population biomass, sustainable yield, the risk of overfishing, or stock status relative to specific reference points (or proxies for any or all of these).  This information can then be used to determine appropriate catch limits for target populations.

Given the large number of unassessed stocks and the urgent need for initial assessments of data poor stocks, EDF’s Ocean Innovations team has summarized relevant scientific papers into a user-friendly guide to 11 data-poor methods (available from Rod Fujita at rfujita[at]edf.org).

We’re also currently working on a comparison of four data-poor methods to determine how closely they agree with results from traditional stock assessments. Preliminary results suggest that many of these methods perform well in simulation studies and in comparison with traditional stock assessment methodology (although in some cases they may result in sustainable yield estimates that are more conservative than Maximum Sustainable Yield).  Some have already been used to set Annual Catch Limits for some U.S. fisheries (see examples below).

Data-poor methods fall into four categories, depending upon the type of data each method requires and the information each method produces.  For more information on a specific method, please contact Rod Fujita at rfujita[at]edf.org.

Extrapolation Methods
Example:

  • Robin Hood Approach

Life-History Vulnerability Analysis
Example:

  • Productivity and Susceptibility Analysis (PSA)

Sequential Trend Analysis
Examples:

  • In-Season Depletion Estimator
  • Depletion-Corrected Average Catch (DCAC)
  • Depletion-Based Stock Reduction Analysis (DB-SRA)
  • An-Index-Method (AIM)
  • Reserve-Based Spawning Potential Ratio (Dynamic SPR)
  • Fractional Change in Lifetime Egg Production (FLEP)
  • Multivariate El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Index (MEI)

Decision Trees
Examples:

  • Length-Based Reference Point
  • MPA-Based Decision Tree

While these methods are relatively new, they have already been successfully used to assess several U.S. fish stocks, including Atlantic wolffish, New England red crab, and 50 groundfish species on the West Coast.  

These new methods, while subject to many caveats and qualifications, are generally much faster and less expensive than traditional stock assessments. Continuing to fish stocks that are not assessed due to a lack of data poses risks to the biological and economic sustainability of fisheries. While having long-term, continuous datasets for each species is the ultimate goal, data-poor methods can help managers extract more useful information from readily available data and reduce risks associated with fishing in ignorance.

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California Fisheries Fund Partners with Bank for Exciting New Loan

By / Bio / Published: January 26, 2011

CFF California Fisheries Fund (Logo)The California Fisheries Fund, a project of Environmental Defense Fund, kicked off 2011 by issuing its sixth and largest loan since the revolving loan fund was launched in 2008 to invest in sustainable fishing businesses on the West Coast.

The loan was made possible by a unique business partnership with San Francisco-based New Resource Bank. CFF and New Resource Bank partnered to extend a $3 million loan to Wild Planet Foods, a sustainable seafood company in McKinleyville, California. Read what the San Francisco Business Times had to say about the California Fisheries Fund: 

“The loans can be used to finance all kinds of improvements that foster sustainability. Some of those include upgrades in fishing gear that let fishermen catch more of the fish they’re targeting and less of the fish they’re not, and dockside infrastructure like chillers that would allow fishermen to keep and sell products locally as opposed to trucking it to other markets.”

The partnership between the California Fisheries Fund, New Resource Bank and Wild Planet represents a growing trend where for-profits and non-profits share many of the same values and an interest in mission-driven outcomes. In this case, all three organizations are driven by a mission of promoting and supporting environmental sustainability, with two of them—CFF and Wild Planet—specifically focused on sustainable fisheries.

Now the CFF is expanding its loan program outside of California to the entire West Coast. Just this week, the California Fisheries Fund closed its first loan in Washington state.  To learn more about the California Fisheries Fund, please visit: http://www.californiafisheriesfund.org/index.html

Press release: http://www.californiafisheriesfund.org/press_rel_012111.html

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Cautious Optimism and a Win for Groundfish as West Coast Catch Share Program Gets Underway

By / Bio / Published: January 19, 2011

On January 11th, the new catch share program took effect for Pacific Ocean trawl-caught groundfish. The new management system was developed over a period of six years by fishermen, regulators and policymakers who recognized that the West Coast’s largest fishery was headed for the rocks.

As reported in the San Jose Mercury News, there is nervousness but also a cautious optimism that both fish and fishermen will win under the new system, just as they have in British Columbia and Alaska.

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Fishermen Embrace Change in the Sinaloa, Mexico Shrimp Fishery: Part II

By / Published: August 20, 2010

The fisherman’s story of frustration with compliance issues under the Sinaloa Shrimp fishery catch share was what I and two of my colleagues continuously heard during our outreach trip in Mexico in July.  After spending a month in fishing camps along the Sinaloa coast giving presentations on catch shares and facilitating other exercises to communicate and dissect the issues of fishery management, we believe the fishermen we reached now understand that achieving success through catch share management will take efforts from all the stakeholders: NGOs, government, and most importantly the fishermen themselves. 

Although it is easy to become frustrated with the challenges of implementing a new fishery management program, we stressed that real lasting change will take time and that our workshops aimed to empower fishermen to begin solving their own problems with compliance. 
 
One thing that has always interested us is what type of management fishermen would implement if they could choose.  To find this out, we played a “fishing game” with three rounds that mimic the problems in the fishery for both the fishermen and the authorities, while inviting fishermen to solve these issues using their own knowledge.

The first round represents the race to fish; the second round a command and control management, and in the third round the fishermen themselves are allowed to make up their own rules.  In many cases the third round resulted in some form of catch shares.  In response, we communicated that although the realities fishermen face are bleak, without their participation and compliance we will never see the third round in reality.

Implementing catch shares in Mexico has many challenges, and illegal fishing is one main roadblock.  In 2009, a historic year for fisheries in Mexico, a TAC was set and shares were allocated for the artisanal blue shrimp fishery.  NGOs and government were working together to improve fishery management, something rare in any country.  

Though in a land where the laws are written well but commonly disobeyed, it has become clear that with catch shares the story is no different.  For this reason it has been of utmost importance for us to maintain contact with the fishermen and continue our presence on the ground.  Adaptive management and design continues to be our motto as we work with fishermen to implement innovative solutions and design to confront these challenges.

During our trip, I was a proud catch share cheerleader, and for this shrimp season in Sinaloa we have restored the faith in many fishermen that catch shares equals change.   Now we must continue to work with fishermen to help design solutions that will turn theory into practice and implement innovative enforcement programs, which will reward those who are part of a catch share and gather their support as advocates and better stewards of their resource.

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