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Canada's Pacific groundfish trawl habitat agreement: A global first in an ecosystem approach to bottom trawl impacts
... Groundfish are prominent in our case study; they include species that declined during the 1980s and 1990s due to overexploitation (Anderson et al., 2021;Yamanaka & Logan, 2010). Groundfish declines have been largely mitigated since the 2000s due to the introduction of individual transferable quotas (ITQs), comprehensive monitoring and enforcement, freezing of the trawl footprint and spatial fishery closures (Anderson et al., 2021;Davis, 2008;Wallace et al., 2015;Yamanaka & Logan, 2010). Indigenous Peoples, however, see these improvements as insufficient because, as detailed in Section 4, the management of commercial fisheries largely follows an MSY framework, normalizing a shifting baseline of biomass abundances and body sizes that are far below their historical values (Figures 1 and 2). ...
... The potential for stakeholder support of IKS-compatible fisheries management is suggested by changes collaboratively designed by the Pacific groundfish industry over the past two decades. These changes include shifting to 100% at-sea and dockside monitoring with ITQs, freezing the trawl footprint and introducing coral and sponge bycatch quotas (Davis, 2008;Wallace et al., 2015). These measures have largely reduced impacts on corals and sponges (Gale et al., 2022) and unintended catches of long-lived rockfishes (Branch & Hilborn, 2008;Forrest et al., 2020). ...
... The instant kill prevents the lactic acid formation that degrades flesh quality; consequently, fishers trade off the cost of increased handling time for the benefit of 20%-400% increases in revenue per unit of flesh (Sullivan, 2022 In the Northern Shelf Bioregion, potential industry support for implementing these concepts is suggested by the trawl industry's existing underutilizing of their quota for many species (see data archived at https://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/groun dfish -poiss ons-fond/publi catio ns-eng.html), and by the collaboratively developed changes already supported by that industry to reduce impacts on corals and sponges and to manage and monitor groundfish fisheries (Davis, 2008;Wallace et al., 2015). Further, some longline fisheries for groundfish already apply Ikejime (I. ...
Fisheries science uses quantitative methods to inform management decisions that reflect cultural preferences which, in turn, indirectly influence the states of ecosystems. To date, it has largely supported Eurocentric preferences for the commodification of marine organisms under the tenets of maximum sustainable yield, whereby abundances are intentionally maintained far below their historical baselines despite broader socio‐ecological trade‐offs. In contrast, Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) adhere to the principle of “take only what you need and leave lots for the ecosystem,” implementing lower fishery removals to support socio‐ecological resilience. Despite the power imbalance favouring Eurocentric preferences in decision‐making, fisheries scientists increasingly recognize that the pairing of IKS and Western science, or Two‐Eyed Seeing, would lead to more holistic management goals. For recognition to transcend tokenism, meaningful collaborations and co‐governance structures underlying knowledge co‐production must carry through to legislated policy changes. Using recent co‐governance developments for fisheries management and spatial protections involving federal, provincial and Indigenous governments in Pacific Canada, we illustrate how the precautionary approach, including reference points and harvest control rules broadly applied in international fisheries, could be revised to make collaborative fisheries management compatible with IKS and improve biodiversity and fisheries protections. Our recommendations may create socio‐economic trade‐offs at different timescales for commercial fishers. Pre‐empting that challenge, we discuss IKS‐compatible economic approaches for addressing shorter term costs arising from reduced exploitation rates. Although our case study derives from Pacific Canada, the insights provided here are broadly applicable elsewhere in the world.
... rocky reefs), their establishment may have indirectly impacted the composition of the demersal fish community in adjacent soft bottom areas, as many species are found in both habitats. In 2012, several additional measures were implemented to reduce habitat impacts of bottom trawling (Wallace et al. 2015). These included an ecosystem-based trawling footprint for the bottom trawl fishery, a measure co-led by the commercial industry and environmental groups, which limited commercial trawling to a sub set of the region. ...
... These reductions in fishing intensity likely reflect the management interventions that were implemented during this period (Wallace et al. 2015), as well as socioeconomic factors in the region. As outlined in our methods, we opted not to include these coast-wide aggregate measures of fishing effort in our model and instead include localized fishing effort, from which these coast-wide measures are derived. ...
... Likewise, areas inside of the ecosystem-based trawling footprint tended to have higher biomass than areas where fishing was excluded. This footprint was established as a voluntary measure by the commercial trawl fishery, and areas where fishing was previously concentrated tended to be included within the footprint (Wallace et al. 2015). Notably, the overall reduction in the spatial extent of the fishery does not appear to be primarily associated with the implementation of the footprint, as the decline in fishing extent has been continuous over the study period (Fig. S5b). ...
Conservation of marine biodiversity requires understanding the joint influence of
ongoing environmental change and fishing pressure. Addressing this challenge requires robust
biodiversity monitoring and analyses that jointly account for potential drivers of change. Here, we
ask how demersal fish biodiversity in Canadian Pacific waters has changed since 2003 and assess
the degree to which these changes can be explained by environmental change and commercial
fishing. Using a spatiotemporal multispecies model based on fisheries independent data, we find
that species density (number of species per area) and community biomass have increased during
this period. Environmental changes during this period were associated with temporal fluctuations
in the biomass of species and the community as a whole. However, environmental changes were
less associated with changes in species occurrence. Thus, the estimated increases in species density
are not likely to be due to environmental change. Instead, our results are consistent with an
ongoing recovery of the demersal fish community from a reduction in commercial fishing intensity
from historical levels. These findings provide key insight into the drivers of biodiversity change
that can inform ecosystem-based management.
... The case of incentivizing the avoidance of unwanted catch, upon which this paper will focus, involves the groundfish trawl fishery of Canada's Pacific region, British Columbia (B.C.). The fishery, with a current fleet of about 50 vessels, is an extraordinarily complex multi-species one, involving over 60 stocks of species, such as various types of rockfish, flatfish, cods, and elasmobranchs, extending throughout the length and breadth of the B.C. 27000 km coastline- Figure 1 (Wallace et al., 2015). It has been noted that, if B.C. were an independent country, it would have the eight longest coastline in the world (Clark and Munro, 2017). ...
... The waters off B.C. are also home to between 60 and 80 species of cold water coral, and home to over 300 species of sponge (Wallace et al., 2015). By the late 1990s and early 2000s, scientists were becoming increasingly aware of the great ecological importance of these sponge and coral species. ...
... But now, the problem has been, to all intents and purposes, resolved. In the late 1990s, there was recorded in the fishery a single trawler tow yielding a sponge/coral catch of 11.2 tonnes (Wallace et al., 2015). In the last pre-COVID season, the recorded catch of sponge/coral catch for the entire B.C. groundfish trawl fleet over the season was 0.13 tonnes (Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Pacific Region, 2020). ...
This paper focuses on a particularly successful avoidance of unwanted catch of protected, endangered, and threatened (PET) species in the form of ecologically important sponge and coral, to be found off Canada's Pacific coast. The fishery causing the unwanted catch—the British Columbia groundfish trawl fishery. A campaign to protect the sponge/coral led by environmental NGOs (ENGOs) resulted in the industry's access to the key California market being threatened. For reasons explained, the national resource manager's ability to take effective direct action had become severely compromised. The groundfish trawl fishing industry responded to the economic threat with a bottom up approach to the unwanted catch problem, by negotiating a habitat agreement with a consortium of ENGOs, with the blessing and full support of the national resource manager. The agreement, now in its tenth year of operation, has proved to be a remarkable success in avoidance of unwanted catch. The paper argues that the success rests fundamentally upon the fact that the fishers have been and are playing a stand alone stable cooperative game, which has led them in turn to play stable cooperative games with both the national resource manager and the ENGO consortium. The paper analyses the factors leading to the stand alone stable cooperative fisher game, doing so by necessity through the lens of game theory.
... The spatial management measures in these fisheries vary in the impetus for their implementation, which can affect design attributes (Table 2). British Columbia's trawl footprint closure, for example, was motivated by industry interest in achieving ecocertification, which meant design attributes were affected by the certification requirements (Wallace et al., 2015). It has been debated whether these "frozen" closed areas really represent proactive management to protect habitat or whether the process just formally protects areas that were already de facto refuges due to an absence of fishing effort (Rieser, Watling, & Guinotte, 2013). ...
... British Columbia, like Iceland and Alaska, utilizes an extensive, science-based spatial management network. The trawl footprint was instituted in 2012, and its efficacy for groundfish stocks has not yet been evaluated (Wallace et al., 2015). British Columbia's RCAs have been in place somewhat longer, but few positive effects on targeted rockfish species have been documented (Haggarty, Shurin, & Yamanaka, 2016). ...
... This was the case in the implementation of coral protections in Alaska and Norway, the design of a trawl footprint closure in British Columbia, and the voluntary closure of hoki fishing grounds in New Zealand. Notably, rights-based management might be an important factor promoting fisher support for spatial management (Barner et al., 2015;Wallace et al., 2015), enhancing the potential synergies between the two approaches. ...
The role of spatial management, including marine protected areas, in achieving fisheries outcomes alongside conservation goals is debated. In fisheries that fail to meet fishing mortality targets, closed areas are sometimes implemented to reduce fishing mortality. However, fisheries with stronger management, including rights‐based approaches that can address overcapacity and overfishing problems, often employ spatial management as well. Here, we compare the objectives, design, and performance of spatial management in nine temperate demersal fisheries in North America, Oceania, Europe, and Africa that employ rights‐based systems. Common objectives of spatial management included protecting habitat, juveniles, and spawners and reducing discards. Recovering age structure and creating scientific reference sites were less common objectives, despite being widely cited benefits of spatial management. Some fisheries adopted single closures to achieve single objectives, whereas others adopted diverse networks to achieve multiple objectives. Importantly, many spatial protections are implemented primarily through industry initiatives. Environmental change compromised the efficacy of spatial management in some cases, suggesting the need to design spatial management systems that are robust to changing ocean conditions. Fisheries with diverse and extensive spatial management systems have generally healthier fish stocks. Whether this implies that spatial management contributed substantially to fishery performance is unclear due to an absence of large‐scale, long‐term studies aimed at discerning different drivers of success. Although these targeted monitoring studies of closed areas are limited, such studies are necessary to help resolve the ongoing debate and to enable more purposeful design of spatial management for fisheries and conservation.
... The groundfish industry, through its own initiative, negotiated a habitat by catch limitation scheme, which can be claimed as a global first (Wallace et al. 2015). It has, moreover, on several occasions put pressure on the Canadian resource manager, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), to sharply reduce several TACs on relevant species. ...
... The agreement has now completed four years. Furthermore, the agreement and its history have been fully documented, with the documentation taking the form of an article published in Marine Policy in late 2015 (Wallace et al. 2015). Moreover, those involved in the agreement have been presented with a conservation award. ...
... How did this come about? The fishery is very complex, involving some 50 species (Wallace et al. 2015). From 1980 until the mid-1990s the fishery was managed through a combination of TACs, licence limitations, trip limits, etc. ...
This article reviews the authors' earlier attempts to incorporate the theories of capital and investment into fisheries economics and argues that such dynamic analysis is now of immediate policy relevance. It also discusses some limitations to the earlier analysis and means of addressing them. It then goes on to point to two areas of potential future research, with the first of these being an expansion of work initiated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and others on the economics of the required massive investment in hitherto overexploited capture fishery resources, giving particular emphasis to the consequences of non-malleable human capital. The second concerns intra-EEZ management of fishery resources and the growing need for greater application of game theory to the management of such resources.
... Coasean bargaining arrangements that have been successful at mitigating conflicts between use and biodiversity conservation include conservation easements and land trusts (Parker, 2004), wetland mitigation banking (Levrel et al., 2017), habitat credits (Wallace et al., 2015), water markets (Grafton et al., 2010), and others (Anderson and Libecap, 2014). While these often are partial solutions, or second best, they can be an improvement over the alternative of no or very limited collaboration, opposition, and evasion. ...
... Voluntary agreements within a framework envisioned by Coase (1960) may be the most fruitful way to proceed. They can build upon incentivebased fishery sector systems (Grafton et al., 2006) and would require extension of property rights to include impacts on ecosystem resources as illustrated by Wallace et al. (2015) and Holland (2018). Coasean solutions allow sectors to bargain and adjust to address the externality problem and can offer opportunities to move on from stalemate. ...
... Coasean bargaining arrangements that have been successful at mitigating conflicts between use and biodiversity conservation include conservation easements and land trusts (Parker, 2004), wetland mitigation banking (Levrel et al., 2017), habitat credits (Wallace et al., 2015), water markets (Grafton et al., 2010), and others (Anderson and Libecap, 2014). While these often are partial solutions, or second best, they can be an improvement over the alternative of no or very limited collaboration, opposition, and evasion. ...
... Voluntary agreements within a framework envisioned by Coase (1960) may be the most fruitful way to proceed. They can build upon incentivebased fishery sector systems (Grafton et al., 2006) and would require extension of property rights to include impacts on ecosystem resources as illustrated by Wallace et al. (2015) and Holland (2018). Coasean solutions allow sectors to bargain and adjust to address the externality problem and can offer opportunities to move on from stalemate. ...
Standard approaches to environmental and natural resource use externalities generally focus on single-sector resources and user groups. Remedies include Pigouvian-style government constraints, small group controls following Elinor Ostrom, or less frequently, bargaining across users as outlined by Ronald Coase. However, many difficult natural resource management problems involve competing uses of the same resource or multiple interdependent resources, across multiple, heterogeneous sectors. Cross-sectoral externalities are generated and impede attainment of conservation objectives. The multiplicity of resources and stakeholders, who may have different property rights, hold different use or non-use values, have different traditions, or fall under different regulatory regimes, increases the likelihood of multi-jurisdictional conflicts. We provide an institutional analysis following Oliver Williamson's four-levels of institutions (social embeddedness, institutional environment, governance, resource allocation) to illustrate the sources of potential conflict, the costs of addressing them, and the potentials for exchange. In comparing the costs of alternative approaches, we include transaction costs associated property rights; the costs of lobbying, implementing, and enforcing government regulation; and the costs of scaling up from small-group controls when resource problems involve multiple sectors and heterogeneous populations. In our illustrative case examples, instruments that are not formal property rights are exchanged at lower transaction costs. We close by discussing how Coasean, Pareto-improving voluntary exchange agreements may be lower cost, more effective, and more durable solutions than alternative management regimes to mitigate cross-sectoral externalities.
... nerable structure-forming species, such as coral and sponge. At present, they are being implemented forWallace et al., 2015). The bycatch quotas are tradable between vessels and are combined with more traditional spatial closures in areas with high coral and sponge concentrations. ...
... For example, the moveon protocol requires vessels to notify the fleet if the catch of corals and sponges in an individual tow exceeds a threshold (20 kg). During the first two years of the programme (2012-2013), total sponge and coral bycatches were the lowest recorded in 17 years and fell well below the prescribed fleet-wide maximum target (884 kg;Wallace et al., 2015). ...
... Habitat scores, as for the Habitat Services subgoals, reflect the relatively intact coastal environment of BC since 1990. A BC-wide 2012 trawl habitat agreement among industry, DFO, and conservation organizations has dramatically curtailed trawling impacts on vulnerable and rare habitats [43]. ...
... For example, to quantify monitoring and enforcement of fisheries regulations, we used data on at-sea monitoring (for groundfish fisheries) and the number of fisheries officers employed each year, relative to the size of the commercial fishing fleet (for other fisheries). BC's Integrated Groundfish Program mandates (and achieves) a 100% target for at-sea and dockside monitoring [43,52]. However, for fisheries not covered under this program, targets to define the number of officers required to ensure adequate enforcement of regulations across fisheries were not available for our analysis. ...
Effective management of marine systems requires quantitative tools that can assess the state of the marine social-ecological system and are responsive to management actions and pressures. We applied the Ocean Health Index (OHI) framework to retrospectively assess ocean health in British Columbia annually from 2001 to 2016 for eight goals that represent the values of British Columbia’s coastal communities. We found overall ocean health improved over the study period, from 75 (out of 100) in 2001 to 83 in 2016, with scores for inhabited regions ranging from 68 (North Coast, 2002) to 87 (West Vancouver Island, 2011). Highest-scoring goals were Tourism & Recreation (average 94 over the period) and Habitat Services (100); lowest-scoring goals were Sense of Place (61) and Food Provision (64). Significant increases in scores over the time period occurred for Food Provision (+1.7 per year), Sense of Place (+1.4 per year), and Coastal Livelihoods (+0.6 per year), while Habitat Services (-0.01 per year) and Biodiversity (-0.09 per year) showed modest but statistically significant declines. From the results of our time-series analysis, we used the OHI framework to evaluate impacts of a range of management actions. Despite challenges in data availability, we found evidence for the ability of management to reduce pressures on several goals, suggesting the potential of OHI as a tool for assessing the effectiveness of marine resource management to improve ocean health. Our OHI assessment provides an important comprehensive evaluation of ocean health in British Columbia, and our open and transparent process highlights opportunities for improving accessibility of social and ecological data to inform future assessment and management of ocean health.
... For instance, in 2004, DFO successfully prosecuted a longline fisher who did not have a fisheries observer onboard while fishing in the limited fisheries zone of the Northeast Channel [97]. Canada has undertaken a series of successful conservation actions also in the waters off British Columbia (Northeast Pacific) [98], with the concomitant adoption of four measures, such as: (1) identification of ecosystem-based spatial boundaries for the bottom trawl fleet to prevent further spatial expansion of fishery areas, exclusion of areas of historically high coral and sponge bycatch, as well as control that the area opened to bottom trawling did not disproportionately impact any single habitat type; (2) establishment of an habitat quota (i.e., a bycatch quota for habitat formers) through onboard observers; (3) development of an encounter protocol, such as a set of defined management steps to be applied when a fishing vessel encounters a significant amount of VME indicator taxa; and (4) implementation of the monitoring systems and formation of a scientific committee. Ten years before, the National Marine Fisheries Service in Alaska formulated a habitat protection alternative for the Aleutian Islands (North Pacific) based on an interdisciplinary cost-effective model for mitigating the adverse effects of fishing on deep sea developed by Oceana [99]. ...
... The regular use of observers onboard the fishing boats could help to collect a suite of reliable data about catches of commercial species and bycatch of vulnerable or protected species, as well as to avoid infringements and illegal fishery on VMEs or no-fishing areas. Observers would be also involved in the adoption and implementation of commercial encounter protocols for VMEs in order to limit impacts by fishing practices [92,98]. These protocols can be set up after ad hoc studies that assess a maximum distance that a vessel should have to move after the catch (either shallower or deeper) of a specific quota of VME indicator taxa, which would vary depending on the species. ...
... nerable structure-forming species, such as coral and sponge. At present, they are being implemented forWallace et al., 2015). The bycatch quotas are tradable between vessels and are combined with more traditional spatial closures in areas with high coral and sponge concentrations. ...
... For example, the moveon protocol requires vessels to notify the fleet if the catch of corals and sponges in an individual tow exceeds a threshold (20 kg). During the first two years of the programme (2012-2013), total sponge and coral bycatches were the lowest recorded in 17 years and fell well below the prescribed fleet-wide maximum target (884 kg;Wallace et al., 2015). ...
Bottom trawling accounts for almost one quarter of global fish landings but may also have significant and unwanted impacts on seabed habitats and biota. Management measures and voluntary industry actions can reduce these impacts, helping to meet sustainability objectives for fisheries, conservation and environmental management. These include changes in gear design and operation of trawls, spatial controls, impact quotas and effort controls. We review nine different measures and actions and use published studies and a simple conceptual model to evaluate and compare their performance. The risks and benefits of these management measures depend on the extent to which the fishery is already achieving management objectives for target stocks and the characteristics of the management system that is already in place. We offer guidance on identifying best practices for trawl‐fisheries management and show that best practices and their likelihood of reducing trawling impacts depend on local, national and regional management objectives and priorities, societal values and resources for implementation. There is no universal best practice, and multiple management measures and industry actions are required to meet sustainability objectives and improve trade‐offs between food production and environmental protection.
... 6 The paper commences by reviewing the 2006 Kronbak and Lindroos analysis in which the resource manager is seen playing a leader-follower game with the fishers (industry), with the fishers responding by engaging in competition with one another, or engaging in partial cooperation or full cooperation. It then goes on to examine that history of a now well documented Canadian fishery, the British Columbia groundfish trawl fishery (see: Wallace et al., 2015). ...
... The industry took the initiative in resolving the issue. The support and approval of the resource manager (government of Canada) were essential, but the fact remains that the role of the resource manager was a passive one (Wallace et al., 2015). Furthermore, there have been instances in which the industry has pressured the resource manager to reduce season by season harvest allowances (TACs). ...
Game theory studies the strategic interactions between and among decision makers, players, through mathematical models called games. This paper presents an overview on the evolution of the application of game theory to fisheries economics. The first applications emerged in the late 1970s, focussing upon internationally shared fish stocks. This occurred in the context of the UN Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. During the 1980s and early 1990s the application of game theory to fisheries focused mainly on transboundary fish stocks. Thereafter, the applications to straddling fish stocks developed significantly, through the use of coalition games. This was a consequence of the mismanagement of these stocks, and the management regime brought forth in response by the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement. The application of game theory to the management of national/regional fisheries is a new research frontier, as it is still much underexplored, when compared to international fisheries. This paper also summarizes the main research developments of a set of nine papers selected for this special issue on Game Theory and Fisheries.
... Finally, fishing methods based on bottom trawling can destroy seafloor habitats. This has been identified as a major threat to cold water corals and sponges, which are found off Canada's eastern and western coasts (Wallace et al. 2015). ...
The aim of this book is to build a bridge between conservation theory and practice. The narrative is focused specifically on Canada. This permits an integrated treatment, where conservation theory is presented in the context of the social and institutional framework responsible for its implementation. Special attention is given to topics that are the subject of debate or controversy, as they provide valuable insight into the practical aspects of conservation. The result is a comprehensive synthesis of applied biodiversity conservation, tailored to the needs of conservation students and practitioners in Canada.
... In general, similar approaches to managing benthic impacts on corals and sponges based on large taxonomic groupings are the rule within national waters as well (e.g. Wallace et al. 2015, MacLean et al. 2017. Implementing spatial closures based on these larger taxonomic groupings can lead to imprecise management of VMEs. ...
Vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs), including deep-sea corals and sponges, are important habitats for many fish and invertebrate species and are at risk from the effects of fishing, seafloor mining, and climate change. We describe the zoogeography of deep-sea corals and sponges in Alaska, USA, and identify the environmental factors structuring these assemblages. Images were collected with a calibrated stereo drop-camera (n = 853 transect locations). We used cluster analysis to identify assemblages, canonical correspondence analysis to identify the primary environmental variables structuring these assemblages, and random forest and generalized additive modeling to predict their spatial distributions. The 6 identified assemblages were well defined, with each dominated by a single indicator taxon (2 coral taxa: Primnoidae, Stylasteridae; 2 sponge taxa: Demospongiae, Hexactinellida; 2 sea whip/pen taxa: Balticina sp., Ptilosarcus gurneyi) . The most common assemblages were Demospongiae, Primnoidae, and Balticina sp. Primnoidae and Demospongiae were positively influenced by greater maximum tidal current, bottom current, and bottom temperature as well as proportion of rock and cobble (high for Primnoidae; low to medium for Demospongiae). Balticina sp. was influenced in the opposite direction and was aligned along lower maximum tidal current, bottom current, and bottom temperature as well as unconsolidated sediment and greater depth. We defined VME community indicators as the 6 assemblages, each dominated by a single indicator taxa. These VME community indicators can guide the identification of protected areas.
... Enforcement and enhancement of existing regulations, refinement and expansion of the technological advances needed to assist enforcement, and use of existing technology to track all fishing gear and make sure it is disposed of sustainably will be key (McCauley et al., 2016;Dunn et al., 2018;Laffoley et al., 2019). Spatial closures, gear modifications, and other mitigation methods have been found to successfully reduce bycatch and other ecosystem impacts for many gear types including longlining, gill nets, and bottom trawling (Bull, 2007;Cox et al., 2007;Wang et al., 2013;Wallace et al., 2015). However, many populations and ecosystems still have extremely long recovery times following damage (e.g., Williams et al., 2010;Clark et al., 2019). ...
In 2017, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries signed a second warning letter to humanity to caution against our continued wholesale destruction of global ecosystems (Ripple et al., 2017). Here, we reaffirm their message with a similar warning specifically focused on the ocean: humanity must immediately and significantly alter our harmful trajectory in order to avoid irrevocably damaging our oceans in multiple ways that will further affect ocean health for both us and future generations. The ocean is the world's largest realm, housing an astonishing array of biodiversity that provides critical ecological functions that ultimately support life on Earth. In this paper, we outline some of the significant ongoing and imminent activities that degrade ocean health, including destructive fishing practices, oil and natural gas extraction, seabed mining, coastal development, shipping, pollution, and greenhouse-gas emissions. We end by offering potential avenues to mitigate these impacts, including the cessation of particularly harmful activities, restoration of damaged habitats, strong protection of key and representative ecosystems, reduction in waste and emissions, and global policy shifts that prioritize ecosystem health.
... The fishing industry collaborated with a local ENGO in 2012 to reduce unwanted bycatch, defined as damage to the three-dimensional fish refuge habitat formed by sensitive sponge reefs and corals (Wallace 2007). This resulted in a complex and unique spatial bycatch agreement (Wallace et al. 2015) with the world's first habitat "disincentive" quota. It used data from the complex multi-species quota management system and the 100% at-sea observer program (paid by the industry and in place since 1996) to establish a Habitat Conservation Bycatch Limit, which limited coral and sponge bycatch by individual vessels and the industrial fleet. ...
The global crisis instantiated by the COVID-19 pandemic opens a unique governance window to transform the sustainability, resilience, and ethics of the global seafood industry. Simultaneously crippling public health, civil liberties, and national economies, the global pandemic has exposed the diverse values and identities of actors upon which global food systems pivot, as well as their interconnectivity with other economic sectors and spheres of human activity. In the wake of COVID-19, ethics offers a timely conceptual reframing and methodological approach to navigate these diverse values and identities and to reconcile their ensuing policy trade-offs and conflicts. Values and identities denote complex concepts and realities, characterized by plurality, fluidity and dynamics, ambiguity, and implicitness, which often hamper responsive policy-setting and effective governance. Rather than adopt a static characterization of specific value or identity types, I introduce a novel hierarchical conceptualization of values and identities made salient by scale and context. I illustrate how salient values and identities emerge at multiple scales through three seafood COVID-19 contextual examples in India, Canada, and New Zealand, where diverse seafood actors interact within local, domestic (regional/national), and global seafood value chains, respectively. These examples highlight the differential values and identities, and hence differential vulnerabilities, resilience, and impacts on seafood actors with the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitate differentiated policy interventions if they are to be responsive to those affected. An ethical governance framework that integrates diverse marine values and identities, buttressed by concrete deliberation and decision-support protocols and tools, can transform the modus operandi of global seafood systems toward both sustainable and ethical development.
... Effective spatial management requires information and the commitment of all parties to achieving a common goal. Data accuracy and availability as well as transparency between industry and conservation organizations are crucial to developing efficient collaborative management (Shelmerdine et al., 2014;Wallace et al., 2015). Current management practices for VME, such as the move-on rule, can in fact increase the impact by spreading fishing effort over a wider area (Auster et al., 2010), where the distribution of VME is unknown. ...
As industrialized fishing activities have moved into deeper water, the recognition of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) has become important for the protection of the deep-sea. Our limited knowledge on the past and present distribution of VMEs hinders our ability to manage bottom fisheries effectively. This study investigated whether accounting for bottom fishing intensity (derived from Vessel Monitoring System records) as a predictor in habitat suitability models can (1) improve predictions of, and (2) provide estimates for a pre-fishing baseline for the distribution and biomass of a VME indicator taxon. Random Forest models were applied to presence/absence and biomass of Geodia sponges and environmental variables with and without bottom fishing intensity. The models including fishing were further used to predict distribution and biomass of Geodia to a pre-fishing scenario. Inclusion of fishing pressure as a predictive term significantly improved model performance for both sponge presence and biomass. This study has demonstrated a way to produce a more accurate picture of the current distribution of VMEs in the study area. The pre-fishing scenario predictions also identified areas of suitable Geodia habitat that are currently impacted by fishing, suggesting that sponge habitat and biomass have been impacted by bottom trawling activities.
... Third are so-called "move-on rules" in which vessels are required to leave an area if they reach specific bycatch targets (Cournane et al., 2013;Dunn et al., 2014). Finally, various jurisdictions have implemented bycatch quotas where individual vessels or fleets have a quota for the catch of species of concern and the vessel or fleet must cease fishing if it reaches the quota (Wallace et al., 2015). This provides strong incentives for vessels to avoid areas where catch of species of concern is likely, but bycatch quotas and move-on rules do require at-sea monitoring of the catch. ...
The trade-off between biodiversity and sustainable fish harvest with area-based management. While fisheries provide food and employment for hundreds of millions of people, they also can have significant impact on biodiversity. We explore the potential of area-based fisheries management to simultaneously maintain biodiversity and high levels of sustainable food production. We used two illustrative examples of fisheries that have different gear types, areas, and species to evaluate the trade-off between biodiversity and harvest. We calculate the optimal effort by gear and area that maximizes a weighted objective function of biodiversity and harvest, ranging from 100% of the weight on harvest to 100% on biodiversity. We found for both case studies that the trade-off was highly convex, with win-win solutions allowing for high levels of both fishery harvest and conservation. This is achieved by reducing or eliminating fishing effort that negatively impacts high conservation value species while maintaining fishing effort with gears and in areas where there is low conservation impact. We suggest that, in most fisheries, such situations can be found and that effective area-based management can provide for high levels of biodiversity protection and food production.
... a. freezing the footprint of groundfish bottom trawl activities to reduce trawl fishery impacts on significant ecosystem components such as corals and sponges ( Wallace et al. 2015); ...
Pacific Cod (Gadus macrocephalus) is a commercially important species of cod that occurs along the entire coast of British Columbia. Pacific Cod is a relatively short lived species (10-11 years, DFO 2015). The majority of catches are taken in Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound, where abundance is highest, although large catches have historically been taken off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Pacific Cod are caught by the groundfish bottom trawl fishery and in small amounts by hook and line fisheries. Four stocks of Pacific Cod are defined for management purposes in BC: Strait of Georgia (4B); West Coast Vancouver Island (3CD); Queen Charlotte Sound (5AB); and Hecate Strait (5CD).
Advice was requested by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Fisheries Management on the current stock status for Pacific Cod in Areas 5AB, 5CD, and 3CD. Areas 5AB and 5CD were last assessed in 2014; Area 3CD was last assessed in 2001. Area 4B is not assessed in this document. This Science Advisory Report is from the October 10-11, 2018 regional peer review on the Assessment of British Columbia Pacific Cod for Areas 3CD, and 5ABCD in 2018. Additional publications from this meeting will be posted on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Science Advisory Schedule as they become available.
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/SAR-AS/2019/2019_008-eng.html
... In Panama, for example, acoustic mapping of priority conservation areas is being undertaken to facilitate cooperation and policy design with fishers and other stakeholders (Harper et al., 2010). Similar efforts in Canada have led to industrynon-governmental organization (NGO)-governmentdeveloped policies to protect sensitive sponge and coral habitats; while governance capacity is certainly higher in this case, many methods and lessons are nonetheless applicable to other contexts (Wallace et al., 2015). Tradebased measures, such as monitoring and traceability requirements on export fisheries, can also be useful, particularly for industrial fisheries and through partnerships between Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs), national governments, and industry (Hosch, 2016). ...
Fisheries catches are known to be widely underreported, and much of their value flows in informal markets. Goods and services that are not directly sold in a market also have a corresponding economic value, here termed ‘shadow value’, which can apply to discarded fish—or those that are consumed but not sold (e.g., subsistence catches). Here, we estimate the monetary value of fisheries catches in Panama that are landed but not reported, or that are discarded at sea; this includes catches from artisanal and industrial fleets, as well as recreational and subsistence fisheries. Based on available data, we estimate that the market and shadow value of unreported catches in Panama in 2010 was around US$92 million, equal to approximately 43% of the total reported landed value. In the case of discarded fish, the shadow value represents the potential but entirely unrealized economic benefit of landing such fish; in the case of unreported landings, unreported market value represents only the first link in the potentially sophisticated informal seafood economy. One must be careful in considering these results for policy. It is possible that, rather than seeking to capture these ‘lost’ benefits, fish that are discarded or unreported should not have been caught at all, for example, if they are juveniles or of threatened species; conversely, unreported subsistence catches are crucial for food security throughout the world. These results help contextualize the scale of unreported fisheries in economic terms, and can inform subsequent policies and strategies to ensure social, ecological, and economic sustainability.
... Second, it often relies on stakeholders and managers to work together to set up a system in which resource use data are shared, requiring negotiation and agreement on the terms of use (e.g. Holmes et al., 2011;O'Keefe and DeCelles, 2013;Wallace et al., 2015), within a context where laws and policies support such use (Hobday et al., 2014). Third, the correct incentive structure must be in place in order for the benefits to appear great enough for both initiation and compliance (Holmes et al., 2011;Hobday et al., 2014;Lewison et al., 2015). ...
Real-time spatial management in fisheries, a type of dynamic ocean management, uses nearly real-time data collection and dissemination to reduce susceptibility of certain species or age classes to being caught in mixed fisheries. However, as with many fisheries regulations, it is difficult to assess whether such a regulation can produce tangible results on population dynamics. In this study, we take advantage of a rare opportunity in which data regarding real-time closures (RTCs) are available for 1990-2014 alongside annual estimates of fishing mortality for three species (Atlantic cod, haddock, and herring) and catch for four species (all plus saithe) in Icelandic fisheries management. We use time series analyses to assess whether RTCs work as expected and yield a lower susceptibility of small fish to being caught, indicated by lower catch levels and selectivities (as estimated from fishing mortalities) in years with more closures. Results indicate that haddock and herring followed this pattern, but only under conditions of generally high fishing mortality. This study represents the first time evidence has been presented that real-time fishery closures can have a beneficial effect on population dynamics, but also suggests that results differ among species. © International Council for the Exploration of the Sea 2017. All rights reserved.
... Between 2012 and 2015, bottom-contact fisheries off British Columbia, Canada, generated a mean total landed value of CAD$122 million, with longline hook and longline trap fisheries for Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) and sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) account-ing for CAD$66 million. Longline fisheries operate along most of the continental slope and shelf (Fig. 1), including within complex terrain (e.g., boulder outcrops, rocky reefs) that is inaccessible by bottom trawl (Sinclair et al. 2005;Wallace et al. 2015). This ability to fish a variety of terrain over a broad area increases the likelihood of bottom contact in areas where cold-water corals and sponges probably occur (Mortensen and Buhl-Mortensen 2004;Woodby et al. 2009). ...
Bottom longline hook and trap fishing gear can potentially damage sensitive benthic areas (SBAs) in the ocean; however, the large-scale risks to these habitats are poorly understood because of the difficulties in mapping SBAs and in measuring the bottom-contact area of longline gear. In this paper, we describe a collaborative academic–industry–government approach to obtaining direct presence–absence data for SBAs and to measuring gear interactions with seafloor habitats via a novel deepwater trap camera and motion-sensing systems on commercial longline traps for sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) within SGaan Kinghlas – Bowie Seamount Marine Protected Area. We obtained direct presence–absence observations of cold-water corals (Alcyonacea, Antipatharia, Pennatulacea, Stylasteridae) and sponges (Hexactinellida, Demospongiae) at 92 locations over three commercial fishing trips. Video, accelerometer, and depth sensor data were used to estimate a mean bottom footprint of 53 m ² for a standard sablefish trap, which translates to 3200 m ² (95% CI = 2400–3900 m ² ) for a 60-trap commercial sablefish longline set. Our successful collaboration demonstrates how research partnerships with commercial fisheries have potential for massive improvements in the quantity and quality of data needed for conducting SBA risk assessments over large spatial and temporal scales.
... Across systems, there are limited data to assess how catch shares for targeted finfishes affect habitat disturbance (Branch 2009), but our results indicate that such policies can facilitate reductions in seafloor disturbance, albeit indirectly by modifying effort. Generally, catch shares are only likely to have a substantial direct ef fect on habitat disturbance if there are individual bycatch quotas for structure-forming invertebrates, as implemented for corals and sponges in British Columbia, Canada (Wallace et al. 2015). Theory also supports the potential effectiveness of individual habitat quotas for conservation of biogenic habitat, with indications that this approach is more likely to be effective and efficient than implementation of no-take areas (Holland & Schnier 2006). ...
Despite evidence that mobile bottom fishing gear causes physical damage to habitat-forming organisms on the seafloor, likely indirectly affecting associated fishes, it is difficult to determine how conservation and management policies influence such effects because researchers do not typically systematically quantify the extent and intensity of gear–habitat interactions. Here, we estimate spatiotemporal trends in bottom trawling in areas containing biogenic habitat (sponges and corals) on the US west coast to evaluate the effect of spatial closures, catch shares and vessel buybacks. We predicted highest probabilities of biogenic habitat occurrence in moderate to deep depths north of Cape Mendocino and off Southern California, and highest gear–habitat interaction frequencies in moderate depths off Oregon and Washington. Temporal trends in total biogenic habitat contacts tracked changes in fishing effort, mostly declining between 2003 and 2014 (declines between start and end year ranged from 51–55% across taxa). However, the predicted frequency of contacts per unit effort increased by 17–56% across taxa from 2003–2009, coinciding with implementation of spatial closures, and our results indicate this was due to effort displacement and shifting spatial distribution of fishing. These relative interaction rates then declined by 10–34% after implementation of catch shares. Thus, although spatial closures may protect habitat within protected areas, without complementary policies, spatial closures may increase gear–habitat interactions in adjacent areas due to changes in fisher behavior and fishing effort displacement.
... Unlike regulation, cap and trade systems foster innovation to reduce damage as the proponent can reduce costs (through purchasing less quota) or generate revenue (from selling quota) ( Newell et al. 2006). In the marine context, habitat damage quotas have been suggested to limit environmental impacts of fishing ( Holland & Schnier 2006;Innes et al. 2015) and have been successfully implemented in at least one fishery ( Wallace et al. 2015). In these schemes, different types of habitat are assigned different decrement rates, such that sensitive habitats consume higher quantities of habitat damage quota per hectare, while less sensitive habitats require lower quota units. ...
The increase in port development along the Queensland coast, and the associated dredging activity, has led to increased environmental concerns for the health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). While such impacts are of particular immediate concern for the GBR region, the issues surrounding dredging and dumping of dredge spoil are common to many other coastal regions in Australia and elsewhere. In this article, we review the current Australian policy and legislation affecting the dumping at sea of dredge spoil and the incentives this creates in terms of minimising damage. We find that the current complex framework may not necessarily provide appropriate incentives to minimise damage once approval has been obtained, although more recent policy interventions may help encourage innovation in more environmentally friendly actions. We also review the potential for other incentive-based management systems to limit environmental damage from dredging, drawing on the experiences in fisheries and marine biodiversity conservation.
Macrobenthos have been used to monitor the self-pollution of cage culture. Will cage culture inevitably reduce their biomass and biodiversity? A one-year investigation was conducted in a lagoon with a history of cage culture for approximately 20 years. In December, the macrobenthos biomass in cage culture area (CCA) was higher than that in FTA (area farthest from CCA). The macrobenthos biodiversity in CCA and NCA (area near CCA) was higher. During the production period, the stabilities of the microbenthic communities in NCA and FRA (area further from CCA) were lower. In the nonproduction period, the stability of the macrobenthic community in CCA was higher than that in FTA. The landform, fishing and organic matter and Ex-P (exchangeable phosphorus) in sediments jointly affected macrobenthos. Cage culture did not inevitably reduce macrobenthos biomass and biodiversity but provided stable microhabitats for macrobenthos. The NCA and FRA may be ecotones between CCA and FTA.
To protect cold-water corals and sponges from fishing damage, management changes were made in 2012 to the groundfish bottom trawl fishery British Columbia, Canada. The Groundfish Trawl Habitat Agreement restricted the spatial footprint of the fishery and introduced a cold-water coral and sponge bycatch quota, which was among the world’s first. Using 12 years of catch records from the fishery, we found a 31% decrease in overall frequency of encounters of cold-water coral and sponge, a 76% decrease in mean catch weight, and an 89% decrease in total annual catch. We tracked changes in the relative utilization of fine-scale fishing grounds (“fishing opportunities”) and found evidence of active avoidance of areas with high cold-water coral and sponge density. The habitat agreement appears overall to have been successful at reducing impacts to cold-water coral and sponge, although we identified several areas of potential conservation concern where effort and catch have not decreased. Non-spatial management measures in a complex multispecies fishery can result in spatial changes in fishing behaviour, with positive conservation outcomes for bycatch species.
Species responses to climate change are often measured at broad spatiotemporal scales, which can miss the fine‐scale changes that are most relevant to conservation and fisheries management. We develop a scaleable geostatistical approach to assess how juvenile and adult fish distributions have been shaped by changes in bottom temperature and dissolved oxygen over a recent decade of warming in the northeast Pacific. Across 38 demersal fishes, biomass trends were associated negatively with warming and positively with dissolved oxygen, but when trends in both biomass and climate were converted to velocities—the speed and direction a population would have to move to maintain consistent conditions—the effect of temperature change differed depending on local conditions. In the warmest locations, warming velocities were associated with negative biotic velocities for 19 of 69 species‐maturity combinations, and yet were almost always associated with stable or positive biotic velocities in the coolest locations (64 of 69). These spatially consistent biomass declines (negative biotic velocities) in the warmest locations and increases in cooler locations suggest a redistribution of species with the potential for new ecological and fisheries interactions. After controlling for temperature, the more spatially consistent effects of dissolved oxygen were often negative, suggesting a mechanism other than hypoxia avoidance—potentially changes in primary production. Our approach identifies the species and locations that are most sensitive to observed changes in the environment at any scale, thus facilitating future vulnerability assessments.
Credit systems for mitigation of bycatch and habitat impact, incentive-based approaches, incentivize changes in fishery operator behavior and decision-making and allow flexibility in a least-cost method. Three types of credit systems, originally developed to address environmental pollution, are presented and evaluated as currently underutilized incentive-based approaches. The first, a cap-and-trade approach, evolved out of direct regulation through restricted limits with flexibility through the creation of tradeable unused portion of the limit, called credits. The second, a penalty-reward system, incentivizes bycatch- and habit-impact- reducing vessel behavior through rewards for positive behavior, and penalties for negative behavior. The third is a hybrid of the first two. All three systems can be used in the context of both absolute (fixed) and relative (rate-based or proportional) credits. Transferable habitat impact credit systems are developed for area management. The cap-and-trade credit system is directly compared to a comparable property rights system in terms of characteristics, strengths, weakness, and applicability. The Scottish Conservation Scheme and halibut bycatch reduction in the Alaskan multispecies groundfish fishery provide real-world examples of success with credit systems. The strengths, weaknesses, and applicability of credit systems are summarized, along with a set of recommendations. Cap-and-trade credit systems provide an important alternative to property rights, such as when rights are not feasible, and for this reason should prove useful for international fisheries. Penalty-reward and hybrid credit systems can substitute for cap-and-trade credit systems or property rights or complement them by addressing a related but otherwise unaddressed issue.
On January 1, 2020, the United States (U.S.) government implemented new regulations increasing total closed areas to bottom trawl fishing by 363,513 km2, including a net increase of 44,498 km2 in essential fish habitat conservation areas at fishable depths (<1,280 m) along the West Coast continental shelf and upper slope. At the same time, the government reopened certain bottom trawl fishing grounds originally established to rebuild overfished groundfish. In combination with previously existing conservation areas, the result of these regulations is that bottom trawl fishing is now prohibited in 90% (739,491 km2) of ocean waters in the United States West Coast Exclusive Economic Zone, including 32.6% of shelf (<200 m) depth zones and 56.0% of upper slope depth zones (200-1,280 m), with a disproportionate focus on priority habitat features that are proxies for fish habitat, sensitivity to bottom trawling, and biodiversity. The final spatial management measures include 53 new or modified habitat conservation areas closed to bottom trawling in fishable depths (<1,280 m) and a precautionary prohibition on all bottom contact fishing gears at depths greater than 3,500 m. Together the final set of habitat conservation area closures and openings result in an overall increase in coastwide protections for hard, mixed, and soft substrates; seamounts; submarine canyons; and known and predicted coral, sponge, and pennatulid locations. Finer scale analyses indicate net increases or no change in coral and sponge observations inside protected areas across all regions and depth zones, despite some reductions in total area and hard substrate protected in certain regions. Based on historic bottom trawl effort data, we estimate that the opening of previously closed areas restores 24.6% of fishing effort that was displaced by bottom trawl closures implemented prior to 2020. Here we describe the involvement and approach of the conservation organization, Oceana, to protect seafloor habitats off the United States West Coast, which included a coastwide proposal to modify conservation areas, geospatial analyses, grassroots organizing, media stories, and scientific expeditions using remotely operated vehicles. Our comparison of the new versus previous assemblage of habitat conservation areas demonstrates increased overall habitat protection and fishing opportunities throughout depths and bioregions off the United States West Coast.
There is a continuum of approaches to model the strategic behaviour between and among agents in fisheries. The chapters so far have introduced the readers to some of the most widely used cooperative and non-cooperative fishery games. The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to another set of approaches. The chapter will present the concepts of multi-stage games and repeated games. It will, furthermore, address a class of games often referred to as fish war games, as well as games with spatial dimensions, and games under uncertainty. The chapter concludes with a case study on the groundfish trawl fishery of British Columbia.
The role of game theory (the theory of strategic interaction) in the economics of the management of world capture fisheries resources has evolved gradually over time. If the commencement of modern fisheries economics can be seen to be marked by the publication of H. Scott Gordon’s seminal 1954 article, it can be said that, for the first quarter-century of modern fisheries economics, game theory played a negligible role. There was no perceptible strategic interaction, or at least none seen worth bothering about. All of this changed with the advent of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the EEZ regime. Coastal states establishing EEZs were forced to recognize that some of the fisheries encompassed thereby would be shared with other states. Since strategic interaction between and among states sharing these international fishery resources is central to the management of the resources, fishery economists analysing such management had no choice but to bring game theory to bear. The steadily increasing complexity of international fishery management brought forth the need for game theory models of greater and greater sophistication. The application of game theory to the economics of the management of national, or intra-EEZ, fishery resources, on the other hand, has lagged far behind such application to international fisheries management. This is now changing, as the strategic interaction among the relevant fishers, and between the fishers and the resource managers, can be ignored no longer. The application of game theory to the economic analysis of the management of national fisheries stands as the “new frontier”.
This chapter examines the issue of developing deep-sea mining (DSM) while managing the impact upon deep seabed environmental assets. It reviews pertinent background information relating to DSM and the environment; develops a suite of potential policy instruments, including both direct and incentive-based regulation; develops additional incentive-based policy instruments, largely drawn from terrestrial conservation, for potential consideration; briefly touches upon technology and innovation to address mitigation of adverse environmental impacts from DSM; and then provides a concluding discussion.
Climate Change and Ocean Governance - edited by Paul G. Harris February 2019
While the direct physical impact on seabed biota is well understood, no studies have defined thresholds to inform an ecosystem-based approach to managing fishing impacts. We addressed this knowledge gap using a large-scale experiment that created a controlled gradient of fishing intensity and assessed the immediate impacts and short-term recovery. We observed a mosaic of taxon-specific responses at various thresholds. The lowest threshold of significant lasting impact occurred between 1 and 3 times fished and elicited a decrease in abundance of 39 to 70% for some sessile epifaunal organisms (cnidarians, bryozoans). This contrasted with significant increases in abundance and/or biomass of scavenging species (epifaunal echinoderms, infaunal crustaceans) by two to four-fold in areas fished twice and more. In spite of these significant specific responses, the benthic community structure, biomass and abundance at the population level appeared resilient to fishing. Overall, natural temporal variation in community metrics exceeded the effects of fishing in this highly dynamic study site, suggesting that an acute level of disturbance (fished over six times) would match the level of natural variation. We discuss the implications of our findings for natural resources management with respect to context-specific human disturbance and provide guidance for best fishing practices.
Internationally, marine biodiversity conservation objectives are having an increasing influence on the management of commercial fisheries. While this is largely being implemented through marine protected areas other management measures, such as market based instruments (MBIs), have proved to be effective at managing target species catch in fisheries and reducing environmental impacts in industries such as mining and tourism. Market-based management measures aim to mitigate the impacts of activities by better aligning the incentives their participants face with the objectives of management, changing their behavior as a consequence. In this paper, we review the potential of MBIs as management tools to mitigate undesirable environmental impacts associated with commercial fishing. Where they exist, examples of previous applications are described and the factors that influence their applicability and effectiveness are discussed. Several fishing methods and impacts are considered and suggest that whilst no single approach is most appropriate in all circumstances either replacing or complementing existing management arrangements with MBIs has the potential to improve environmental performance. This has a number of implications. From the environmental perspective they should enable levels of undesirable impacts such as damage to sensitive habitat or the bycatch of protected species of turtles, marine mammals and seabirds to be reduced. The increased flexibility MBIs allow industry when developing solutions also has the potential to reduce costs to both the industry and managers, improving the cost-effectiveness of regulation as a result. Further, in the increasingly relevant case of MPAs the need for publicly funded compensation often paid to industry when vessels are excluded from grounds, may also be significantly reduced if improved environmental performance makes it possible for some industry members to continue operating.
Problems with fisheries are usually associated with overfishing; in other words, with the deployment of "too many" fishing gears. However, overfishing is not the only problem. Collateral impacts of fishing methods on incidental take (bycatch) and on habitats are also cause for concern. Assessing collateral impacts, through integrating the knowledge of a wide range of fisheries stakeholders, is an important element of ecosystem management, especially when consensual results are obtained. This can be demonstrated using the "damage schedule approach" to elicit judgments from fishers, scientists, and managers on the severity of fishing gear impacts on marine ecosystems. The consistent ranking of fishing gears obtained from various respondents can serve as a basis for formulating fisheries policies that will minimize ecosystem impacts. Such policies include a shift to less damaging gears and establishing closed areas to limit collateral impacts.
Learmonth Bank in northern British Columbia sustains an active trawl fishery that returns large bycatches of deep-sea sponges and corals. To examine effects of biogenic structures on the distribution of fish, we examined nearly 30 km of high-definition imagery from a remotely operated vehicle and documented locations of 2770 scorpaenid fish. The 2 local genera have similar abundances, averaging about 1.2 individuals 100 m–2, but have different spatial abundance patterns: shortspine thornyhead Sebastolobus alascanus are randomly distributed on featureless substrata and their abundance increases with depth. Rockfish Sebastes spp. associate with higher seafloor relief non-randomly and select for sponges and corals over the inert substrata alone; 95% of the rockfish occurred on 27% of the seafloor surveyed. Sponges (Demospongia and Hexactinellida) were abundant on the bedrock and boulders of the bank and adjacent moraine and covered 30 to 55% of the seafloor compared with 1% of the sediment and aggregates of the surrounding basin. The majority of rockfish (80%) occurred with sponges ≥50 cm in height, and even beds of short sponges attracted 4 times as many rockfish than did substrata with no large epifauna. While over half of primnoid corals over 30 cm tall had associated rockfish, less than 2% of the seafloor had large coral, and small coral had no associated rockfish. On the adjacent seafloor with past trawling activity, Primnoa pacifica was 13 times less abundant, and large corals and sponges were rare. Thornyhead abundance doubled but
rockfish had a 3-fold reduction in numbers. Our study indicates that degradation of biogenic structures is a long-term detriment to rockfish species and, although the mechanism remains unclear, our data suggest it occurs through the destruction of a habitat that is more effective for shelter than rough inert seafloor.
Bycatch of Yellowtail Flounder in the U.S. Sea Scallop Fishery is a constraint to achieving optimum yield of scallops. Between 2000 and 2009, in-season bycatch closures of prime scallop grounds resulted in economic losses over US$100 million. To address this constraint, we collaborated with the scallop fishing industry to implement a bycatch avoidance program in the Nantucket Lightship harvest area in 2010. Vessels shared near real-time location information about bycatch amounts during fishing activities. We compiled the information, identified bycatch hotspots, and provided daily advisories to vessels on the fishing grounds. Catch per tow of Yellowtail and fishing effort in high bycatch regions significantly declined after the fleet received the advisories. The fleet harvested the target scallop allocation worth US$40 million while catching only 32% of the Yellowtail bycatch limit. This program continues as a collaborative, iterative approach to bycatch reduction that balances fleet objectives with conservation constraints.
The use of precautionary management actions within a fisheries context has generally been limited to reducing fishing mortality. By the use of quantitative models, overfishing thresholds can be determined and actions can be taken to reduce the probability of further population declines and to allow rebuilding. Within this context, four management approaches have been defined (i.e., preventive approach, corrective approach, precautionary approach, and precautionary principle) on the basis of levels of uncertainty in the information used to make decisions and the potential cost of errors as a result of those decisions. In this paper, I apply these approaches to developing a precautionary and adaptive habitat management framework. Fishing effort metrics are used to develop estimates of the area of seafloor impacted by fishing, and thresholds are proposed to trigger specific types of management actions. Information needs include the cumulative area impacted by all gears, the distribution of habitats and diversity of key taxa, effects of gears on habitat and patterns of diversity, and linkages between habitat and the dynamics of exploited populations. Incentives for the fishing industry that will improve the information available to make decisions and reduce the level of precaution required for managing exploitation of wild populations are discussed. This framework is a starting point for management agencies to develop precautionary and adaptive habitat management programs that promote both the sustainability of exploited populations and the maintenance of biological diversity.
Globally unique hexactinellid sponge reefs occur on the continental shelf off British Columbia, Canada. They cover about 425 km2 of seafloor on the continental shelf off British Columbia (Canada) in water depths between 165 and 240 metres and occur on a low-angle deep shelf, iceberg scoured seafloor, characterized by very low sedimentation rates and very stable environmental conditions. The sponge bioherms are up to 19 metres high with steep flanks, whereas the biostromes are 2–10 metres thick and many kilometres wide. They all consist of dense populations of only seven hexactinellid species. Three of them, all hexactinosan species (Aphrocallistes vastus, Heterochone calyx, Farrea occa) are the main frambuilders, composing a true rigid framework of sponge skeletons encased in a organic rich matrix of modern clay baffled by the sponges. Growth rates of hexactinosan sponges range in the order of 0–7 centimetres per year. The base of the oldest sponge reefs date from approximately 9000 years b.p.
Different invertebrate and fish faunas occupy the reefs than occur on adjacent seafloor areas and some species appear to use the sponge reef complex structures as refugia where they can hide.
Sidescan sonar data and direct observation by manned submersible clearly show that large areas of sponge reefs have been heavily damaged by seafloor trawling in the past decade.
These unique extant siliceous sponge reefs can be used as a modern analogue for a better understanding and interpretation of fossil siliceous sponge reefs, known from many ages and many locations world wide.
The habitat of juvenile Pacific ocean perch (POP) Sebastes alutuswas identified using data from trawl surveys conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service and linear modeling techniques. Analyses were car- ried out to evaluate the POP catch per unit effort (CPUE) data in relationship to depth, temperature, and sponge and coral CPUE. Sponge and coral CPUE were positively correlated, while depth and temperature were negatively correlated. Over 96% of the juvenile POP catch was from depths of 76 to 225 m and their CPUE increased with depth, and decreased with increasing temperature. The most important finding of this analysis was that juvenile POP CPUE increased significantly with increasing sponge and coral CPUE. Multiple regression analysis predicting juvenile POP CPUE explained 16% –17% of the CPUE variability using sponge and coral CPUE and either bottom temperature or depth. Juvenile POP were most abundant at sites in the western Aleutian Islands (beyond 170º W longitude), on large underwater banks (Stalemate and Petrel banks), and in passes between islands where currents are strong and prey availability may be higher than surrounding areas. These results suggest sponge and coral have an important role in the early life history of juvenile POP. Authors: CHRISTOPHER N. ROOPER is with the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, 7600 Sand Point
Video imagery was examined to quantify seafloor disturbance and damage to corals and sponges relative to fishing practices in the central Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Corals and sponges were classified as damaged if they had broken skeletons, missing or broken branches, were torn (i.e. sponges) or detached from the seafloor, or were attached but lying on the seafloor. Disturbance was defined as any alteration to the seafloor or biota caused by fishing gear or natural events. Overall, 14% of corals and 21% of sponges were damaged, and disturbance was widespread and evident on most video transects. The proportion of damaged corals was significantly less (p = 0.003) in areas with little or no bottom trawl fishing versus areas with medium and high intensity bottom trawl fish- ing. For other gear types, damage was not significantly different among fishing levels. Damage for all corals was 7% in untrawled areas, 7% in low-intensity areas, 14% in medium-intensity areas, and 49% in high-intensity areas. For gorgonians, 5% were damaged in untrawled areas and 23% were damaged in high-intensity areas. For hydrocorals, damage was 10% in untrawled areas and 53% in medium-intensity areas. Hydrocorals were absent from high-intensity areas. About 40% of sea whips were damaged in high-intensity areas versus 1% in other areas. While some protective measures have been implemented to halt the expansion of bottom trawl fishing to unfished areas, the con- servation of coral and sponge habitat in fished areas is still of primary concern.
Glass sponges are enigmatic members of the deep-sea fauna that inhabit shallow waters in only a few locations world-wide. In order to understand what factors influence the distribution of glass sponges, patterns of distribution and abundance of reef and non-reef forming hexactinellids in fjords of British Columbia, Canada, were analyzed from photographs and transcripts recorded on dives undertaken by the 'Pisces IV' manned submersible during the 1980s. Hexactinellids are widely distributed throughout all fjords from 16 to 650 m depths, and in some fjords abundances reach 240 individuals in 10 m(2). In all fjords hexactinellids were most abundant at depths of 20 to 260 m, even where water depths exceeded 500 m. Glass sponges were rare in regions of inlets where oxygen levels fall below 2 ml l(-1), or in areas of high sediment deposition. Highest abundances coincided with water conditions of high dissolved silicate, low light, temperatures between 9 and 10degreesC and low suspended sediments. Extensive glass sponge skeletons in the inner basin of Howe Sound reflect past stress in this fjord that may include oxygen deficit, sediment loading from a mine and contamination from industrial sites. The observations from 'Pisces IV' suggest that glass sponges may be sentinel species for current and past seawater conditions in coastal British Columbia.
The USA has rich and varied deep-water coral ecosystems. Disturbances from bottom trawls have been well documented in certain habitats and are considered the major threat to deepwater corals in most US regions where such fishing is allowed. Other bottom-set fishing gears (e.g. gillnets and longlines) can also impact these communities. The USA has taken far-reaching action to address these threats to deep-water habitats. Since 2006, the USA has protected nearly 1.8 million km2 of vulnerable benthic habitats from bottom trawling, mostly in the Pacific. Additional major habitat conservation efforts are underway in the US Atlantic. In these efforts, a number of approaches are emerging as best-practices to conserve deep-water corals and other vulnerable marine ecosystems in the deep sea: (1) protecting particularly vulnerable areas, especially seamounts and major identified deep-water coral habitats, from impacts by all bottom-contact gear; (2) defining the current ‘footprint’ of bottom-trawl and dredge fisheries in partnership with the fishing community, and preventing expansion of these fisheries into deeper waters until they can be surveyed to identify potentially vulnerable habitats; and (3) using fisheries observers and vessel monitoring systems to provide key information that can inform adaptive management and enforcement. In 2006, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the nation’s primary fishing law, was amended to explicitly allow protection of deep-sea corals in their own right. These approaches are being incorporated into a national strategic plan to comprehensively study and conserve deep-water coral and sponge ecosystems, and may help inform ongoing international conservation efforts.
Problems with fisheries are usually associated with overfishing; in other words, with the deployment of "too many" fishing gears. However, overfishing is not the only problem. Collateral impacts of fishing methods on incidental take (bycatch) and on habitats are also cause for concern. Assessing collateral impacts, through integrating the knowledge of a wide range of fisheries stakeholders, is an important element of ecosystem management, especially when consensual results are obtained. This can be demonstrated using the "damage schedule approach" to elicit judgments from fishers, scientists, and managers on the severity of fishing gear impacts on marine ecosystems. The consistent ranking of fishing gears obtained from various respondents can serve as a basis for formulating fisheries policies that will minimize ecosystem impacts. Such policies include a shift to less damaging gears and establishing closed areas to limit collateral impacts.
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We define habitat-forming deep-sea corals as those families of octocorals, hexacorals, and stylasterids with species that live deeper than 200 m, with a majority of species exhibiting complex branching morphology and a sufficient size to provide substrata or refugia to associated species. We present 2,649 records (name, geoposition, depth, and data quality) from eleven institutions on eight habitatforming deep-sea coral families, including octocorals in the families Coralliidae, Isididae, Paragorgiidae and Primnoidae, hexacorals in the families Antipathidae, Oculinidae and Caryophylliidae, and stylasterids in the family Stylasteridae. The data are ranked according to record quality. We compare family range and distribution as predicted by historical records to the family extent as informed by recent collections aboard the National Oceanic of Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration 2002 Gulf of Alaska Seamount Expedition (GOASEX). We present a map of one of these families, the Primnoidae.
We find that these habitat-forming families are widespread throughout the Northeast Pacific, save Caryophylliidae (Lophelia sp.) and Oculinidae (Madrepora sp.), which are limited in occurrence. Most coral records fall on the continental shelves, in Alaska, or Hawaii, likely reflecting research effort. The vertical range of these families, based on large samples (N >200), is impressive. Four families have maximum-recorded depths deeper than 1500 m, and minimum depths shallower than 40 m. Isidid, primnoid, and antipatharian records all exceed 2500 m depth. GOASEX collections are made from each of seven seamounts surveyed, extending the known range of Coralliidae 2500 km northward and the known limits of Isididae 450 km seaward, beyond the continental shelf, to seamounts in the Gulf of Alaska.
Continental margins are dynamic, heterogeneous settings that can include canyons, seamounts, and banks. Two of the largest canyons in the world, Zhemchug and Pribilof, cut into the edge of the continental shelf in the southeastern Bering Sea. Here currents and upwelling interact to produce a highly productive area, termed the Green Belt, that supports an abundance of fishes and squids as well as birds and marine mammals. We show that in some areas the floor of these canyons harbors high densities of gorgonian and pennatulacean corals and sponges, likely due to enhanced surface productivity, benthic currents and seafloor topography. Rockfishes, including the commercially important Pacific ocean perch, Sebastes alutus, were associated with corals and sponges as well as with isolated boulders. Sculpins, poachers and pleuronectid flounders were also associated with corals in Pribilof Canyon, where corals were most abundant. Fishes likely use corals and sponges as sources of vertical relief, which may harbor prey as well as provide shelter from predators. Boulders may be equivalent habitat in this regard, but are sparse in the canyons, strongly suggesting that biogenic structure is important fish habitat. Evidence of disturbance to the benthos from fishing activities was observed in these remote canyons. Bottom trawling and other benthic fishing gear has been shown to damage corals and sponges that may be very slow to recover from such disturbance. Regulation of these destructive practices is key to conservation of benthic habitats in these canyons and the ecosystem services they provide.
One billion people depend on seafood as their primary source of protein and 25% of the world's total animal protein comes from fisheries. Yet a third of fish stocks worldwide are overexploited or depleted. Using individual case studies, many have argued that community-based co-management should prevent the tragedy of the commons because cooperative management by fishers, managers and scientists often results in sustainable fisheries. However, general and multidisciplinary evaluations of co-management regimes and the conditions for social, economic and ecological success within such regimes are lacking. Here we examine 130 co-managed fisheries in a wide range of countries with different degrees of development, ecosystems, fishing sectors and type of resources. We identified strong leadership as the most important attribute contributing to success, followed by individual or community quotas, social cohesion and protected areas. Less important conditions included enforcement mechanisms, long-term management policies and life history of the resources. Fisheries were most successful when at least eight co-management attributes were present, showing a strong positive relationship between the number of these attributes and success, owing to redundancy in management regulations. Our results demonstrate the critical importance of prominent community leaders and robust social capital, combined with clear incentives through catch shares and conservation benefits derived from protected areas, for successfully managing aquatic resources and securing the livelihoods of communities depending on them. Our study offers hope that co-management, the only realistic solution for the majority of the world's fisheries, can solve many of the problems facing global fisheries.
According to international law, straddling fish stocks should preferably be managed cooperatively through regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). This paper analyzes the stability and success of these organizations through a game in partition function form based on the classical Gordon-Schaefer bioeconomic model. A comprehensive analysis of the economic and biological fundamentals that influence the success of coalition formation is provided. The results show that the larger the number of fishing states that compete for the fish stock the higher would be the relative gains from full cooperation, but the lower is the likelihood of large RFMOs being stable. It is also shown that the success of coalition formation is positively correlated with the degree of production cost asymmetry among fishing states and negatively with the overall level of efficiency.
Individual transferable quotas (ITQs) are one of the property rights instruments that have been employed to improve economic efficiency in fisheries. ITQs are not high-quality property rights in the basic fundamental marine resources on which fisheries are based. As a result ITQs cannot be expected to generate full efficiency in the use of these resources. This article examines to what extent ITQs are capable of generating economic efficiency in fisheries. It is shown that ITQs can greatly improve efficiency in fishing. Moreover, by including recreational fishers in the system, ITQs can strike an efficient balance between commercial and recreational fishing. On the negative side, it is shown that on their own, ITQs are not capable of generating full efficiency in fisheries. In particular, ITQs are not sufficient for setting the socially optimal total allowable catch, ensuring the optimal use of the ecosystem, or harmonizing fishing with conflicting uses of marine resources such as marine tourism, mining, and conservation. Potentially counteracting these limitations, ITQ holders as a group have an incentive to manage overall ecosystem use for the long-term benefit of their fishery and negotiate the adjustment of their fishing activity toward the interests of conflicting uses of the marine resources.
(JEL: Q2, Q22, Q26, Q3).
Problems with fisheries are usually associated with overfishing; in other words, with the deployment of “too many” fishing gears. However, overfishing is not the only problem. Collateral impacts of fishing methods on incidental take (bycatch) and on habitats are also cause for concern. Assessing collateral impacts, through integrating the knowledge of a wide range of fisheries stakeholders, is an important element of ecosystem management, especially when consensual results are obtained. This can be demonstrated using the “damage schedule approach” to elicit judgments from fishers, scientists, and managers on the severity of fishing gear impacts on marine ecosystems. The consistent ranking of fishing gears obtained from various respondents can serve as a basis for formulating fisheries policies that will minimize ecosystem impacts. Such policies include a shift to less damaging gears and establishing closed areas to limit collateral impacts.
The current state of knowledge of cold-water corals in British Columbia is summarized. Pacific Canada has a more diverse coral community than does Atlantic Canada, as is the case for most taxonomic groups. A list of Pacific Canada's known coral species and potential species based on records from adjacent jurisdictions is presented, along with maps derived from existing records showing all currently known locations of corals in British Columbia. To date, five orders, 24 families, and 59 species of corals are documented from British Columbian waters, but an additional three families and 36 species may also occur in British Columbia, as these species have been documented from adjacent areas, i.e., southeast Alaska, Gulf of Alaska seamounts, and Washington/Oregon.
A unique feature of the benthic habitat in the Aleutian Islands is the presence of a highly diverse and abundant coral and sponge community. These communities likely provide important habitat for a variety of fish and invertebrate species. Summaries of historical data and recent direct observations with a submersible indicate that the Aleutian Islands may harbour the highest diversity and abundance of coldwater corals in the world. There are 69 documented taxa (species and subspecies) of coral in the Aleutians of which 25 are endemic. Within the Aleutian Islands, there is an increase in diversity of corals west of about longitude 169°W. This shift in diversity is consistent with the hypothesis of an ecological boundary in the vicinity of Samalga Pass. Given the endemism and high diversity and abundance of corals in the Aleutians, there is evidence that this region is the evolutionary centre of origin for some taxa of coldwater corals.
Bottom trawling and use of other mobile fishing gear have effects on the seabed that resemble forest clearcutting, a terrestrial disturbance recognized as a major threat to biological diversity and economic sustainability. Structures in marine benthic communities are generally much smaller than those in forests, but structural complexity is no less important to their biodiversity. Use of mobile fishing gear crushes, buries, and exposes marine animals and structures on and in the substratum, sharply reducing structural diversity. Its severity is roughly comparable to other natural and anthropogenic marine disturbances. It also alters biogeochemical cycles, perhaps even globally. Recovery after disturbance is often slow because recruitment is patchy and growth to maturity takes years, decades, or more for some structure-forming species. Trawling and dredging are especially problematic where the return interval—the time from one dredging or trawling event to the next—is shorter than the time it takes for the ecosystem to recover; extensive areas can be trawled 100–700% per year or more. The effects of mobile fishing gear on biodiversity are most severe where natural disturbance is least prevalent, particularly on the outer continental shelf and slope, where storm-wave damage is negligible and biological processes, including growth, tend to be slow. Recent advances in fishing technology (e.g., rockhopper gear, global positioning systems, fish finders) have all but eliminated what were de facto refuges from trawling. The frequency of trawling (in percentage of the continental shelf trawled per year) is orders of magnitude higher than other severe seabed disturbances, annually covering an area equivalent to perhaps half of the world’s continental shelf, or 150 times the land area that is clearcut yearly. Mobile fishing gear can have large and long-lasting effects on benthic communities, including young stages of commercially important fishes, although some species benefit when structural complexity is reduced. These findings are crucial for implementation of “Essential Fish Habitat” provisions of the U.S. Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act which aim to protect nursery and feeding habitat for commercial fishes. Using a precautionary approach to management, modifying fishing methods, and creating refuges free of mobile fishing gear are ways to reduce effects on biological diversity and commercial fish habitat.
Perturbaciones del Lecho Marino por Artes de Pesca Móbiles: Una Comparación con la Tala Forestals
Los arrastres de fondo y el uso de otras artes de pesca móviles tienen efectos en el lecho marino que se asemejan a la tala total de bosques, que es a su vez una pertubación terrestre reconocida como una de las mayores amenazas a la diversidad biológica y la sustentabilidad económica. Las estructuras en comunidades marinas bénticas son generalmente mucho más pequeñas que aquellas en los bosques, pero la complejidad estructural no es menos importante que la biodiversidad. El uso de artes de pesca móviles quiebra, sepulta y expone animales marinos y estructuras sobre y en el substrato, reduciendo marcadamente la diversidad estructural. Su severidad es burdamente comparable con otras perturbaciones marinas de orden natural o antropogénico. Tambien altera los ciclos biogeoquímicos, de hecho a nivel mundial. La recuperación después de una pertubación es frecuentemente lenta debido a que el reclutamiento es por parches y el crecimiento para alcanzar la madurez toma años, décadas o aún más para algunas especies que forman estructuras. Los arrastres de fondo y dragados son especialmente problemáticos donde el intervalo de retorno (tiempo entre un evento de dragado o arrastre y otro) es más corto que el tiempo que toma a un ecosistema recuperarse;árears extensas son arrastradas entre un 100 y 700% por año o mas. Los efectos de las artes de pesca móviles en la biodiversidad son más severos cuando las perturbaciones naturales son menos prevalentes, particularmente en las afueras de la plataforma continental y la pendiente, donde el daño del oleaje por tormentas es negligible y los procesos biológicos (incluyendo crecimiento) tienden a ser lentos. Recientes avances en tecnología pesquera (e.g., sistemas de posicionamiento global, detectores de peces) aparentemente tienen todo, pero eliminan lo que de facto fueran refugios contra arrastres. La frecuencia de los arrastres (en porcentaje de la plataforma continental arrastrada por año) es órdenes de magnitud mayor que otras perturbaciones severas al lecho marino, anualmente la cobertura de área es equivalente quizá a la mitad de la plataforma continental marina, o 150 veces el área de tierra que es talada anualmente. Las artes de pesca móviles pueden tener impactos grandes y de larga duración en las comunidades bentónicas, incluyendo estadios jóvenes de peces de importancia comercial, aunque algunas especies se benefician cuando la complejidad estructural es reducida. Estos descubrimientos son cruciales para la implementación de el “hábitat esencial para peces” del Acta de Conservación y Manejo de Pesquerias Magnuson-Stevens de los Estados Unidos y que pretende establecer hábitats de reproducción y alimentación para peces comerciales. El uso de una aproximación precautoria de manejo, la modificación de métodos de pesca y la creación de refugios libres de artes de pesca móviles son formas para reducir los efectos en la diversidad biológica y el hábitat para peces comerciales.
Fishery managers in the US are required to identify and limit adverse consequences of fishing on essential fish habitat. We propose an individual habitat quota (IHQ) system for habitat conservation that would utilize economic incentives to achieve habitat conservation goals cost-effectively. Individual quotas of habitat impact units (HIU) would be distributed to fishers with an aggregate quota set to maintain a target habitat “stock”. HIU use would be based on a proxy for marginal habitat damage. We use a dynamic, explicitly spatial fishery and habitat simulation model to explore the cost-effectiveness of achieving specified habitat conservation targets with our IHQ system versus fixed or rotating marine protected areas (MPAs). We find that the IHQ system can be considerably more cost-effective than MPAs, but that the relative advantage decreases as fish diffusion rates and uncertainty about fish distribution increases.
Thirty years have passed since Munro published his 1979 work on the potential applications of game theory to fisheries. It is pertinent to ask now: has this potential been realized, and in what forms? This paper highlights progress in the field over the past three decades. We begin our review with the early two-player dynamic game-theoretic analyses. Next, we illustrate how coalition theory has been brought in over the past decade to allow the modeling of games with greater than two players, and how coalitional externalities, a major issue in international and shared fish stocks management, have been incorporated recently. Finally, we highlight new areas for game theory to come into its own in fisheries, which will most definitely include the potential for catch rights in international shared-stock fisheries, as well as ecosystem dynamics to be modeled in a game-theoretic context. As game theory can offer insights into the challenges of achieving cooperative fisheries management, we hope the next decade of fisheries economics research will include a bigger leap from academic game theory exercises to impacting policy decisions.
"In 2001, a research submersible was used to survey seafloor habitat and associated benthos in the northeastern Gulf of Alaska. One inspected site had a uniform sand-silt substrate, punctuated by widely spaced (10–20 m apart) boulders. Two-thirds of the boulders had sponge, Aphrocallistes sp., colonies. Eighty-two juvenile (5–10 cm) red rockfish (Sebastes sp.) were also observed during the dive, and all of these fish were closely associated with the sponges. No juvenile red rockfish were seen in proximity to boulders without sponges, nor were any observed on the sand-silt substrate between boulders."
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