Applicability of community fisheries management: What fisheries and situations?

1. Applicability of community fisheries management:What fisheries and situations? Jon G. Sutinen Environmental & Natural Resource Economics University of Rhode Island USA

2. Some Basic Issues • What makes up a ‘community’? • How large is a ‘community’? • What is the essential feature of ‘community’ for community fisheries management (CFM)? • When/where is CFM necessary, or particularly valuable?

3. Some Basic Issues • What makes up a ‘community’? • a set of people (or economic agents) with some shared element • of interests, of place • of resource users (crew, suppliers, buyers, voters, etc.) • How large is a ‘community’? • What size? How many members? • What scope? • All species, all gear types? • All ports?

4. Some Basic Issues • What is the essential significance of ‘community’ for CFM? • evokes a sense of collectivity • collective choice by independent economic agents • When/where is CFM necessary, or particularly valuable?

5. Community Fisheries Management for Recreational Fisheries

6. Purpose • Propose CFM as a way to fully integrate the recreational sector into the management of • the Red Snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico • a typical mixed recreational-commercial marine fishery • Design an almost ideal organization • for community recreational fishery management

7. Red Snapper Fishery • An important component of the large multi-species reef fish fishery in the Gulf of Mexico • Red snapper is one of the primary reef fish targeted by both commercial and recreational fishing sectors • Red snapper stock is currently classified as both • overfished and • subject to overfishing

8. Panama City, Florida

9. Panama City, Florida

10. Red Snapper fishery • Commercial harvests in general correspond with the commercial TAC • Recreational harvests have often exceeded the official recreational TAC • Often by significant margins

11. Red Snapper Harvest & TACs

12. Red Snapper Fishery • For-hire boats land 70% • Charter 42% • Headboats 28% • Both fishery sectors reveal a pattern in which open days have diminished over time • Even as the total harvest has remained relatively constant • This is typical of competitive TAC management

13. Days OpenRed Snapper Fishery

14. Red Snapper Fishery • Also a trend towards • smaller bag limits and • increasing minimum length • Uniform management measures • Entire Gulf of Mexico

15. Red Snapper Management • The GMFMC sets management regulations over a wide spatial scale • The recreational season for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, • runs from April 21 through October 31, • applies throughout the Gulf, • With no local or regional variation • The particular dates of the open season, reportedly do not provide optimal benefits to anglers in all geographic areas

16. Red Snapper Management • Current management • Declining benefits from recreational fishing • Not serving local & regional interests • Weak control over fishing mortality • Current trends • Point to a dismal future

17. Red Snapper Fishery • Red snapper reflects a general set of problems with recreational fishery management • U.S., Australia & New Zealand • Weak control of recreational catch levels • threatens to undermine the sustainability of fisheries • Expansion of fishing effort by both recreational and commercial sectors • Especially during the 1990s • Placed fish stocks under pressure in several fisheries

18. Conflict • The growth of the recreational and commercial fishing sectors has caused • conflicts between the two sectors • Conflicts between the two competing sectors typically concern the allocation of the fishery resource • A prominent example of this conflict involves the allocation of quota in fisheries managed under a total allowable catch (TAC)

19. Conflict • The TAC is divided between the two sectors such that the commercial sector and recreational sector each receives a percentage of the TAC • The commercial sector may be subject to a ‘hard’ TAC, • in which the commercial fishery is closed when the quota is met, • While no hard cap on catch restricts the recreational sector • target achieved indirectly using a combination of bag limits, size restrictions, and seasonal closures

20. Conflict • Overages of the TAC subtracted from • Either next season’s TAC, • Or next season’s commercial share of the TAC • This indirect penalty on the commercial sector causes conflict between the two sectors • Conflict also caused by use of different management measures in the two sectors

21. Prospects • Significant economic gains may be realized through management arrangements that • successfully integrate the recreational sector into overall fishery management, • control fishing mortality, and • address the dispersion and heterogeneity characteristics of the recreational fishery • “Integrated Management”

22. Management Integration • What is integrated management? • Management measures & other arrangements applied to the recreational sector that • Achieve the goals of the fishery management plan • such as sustainability and socioeconomic objectives • Achieve the agreed upon allocation of catches • among recreational, commercial, and other user groups

23. Management Integration • The recreational sector of the Red Snapper fishery is not fully integrated into the fishery management program • The management measures provide little or only weak control over recreational fishing mortality; & • The measures allows one sector to erode the amount of catch to which the other sector is entitled.

24. Management Integration • Principles of integration • Derived from theory & evidence • Necessary & sufficient conditions • For integrated recreational fishery management

25. 7 Principles of Integrated Recreational Management • Desirable only where the benefits outweigh the costs of integration. • A mechanism must exist for allocating catches among recreational and other user groups as a precondition for integrated recreational management. • Managers must implement measures that provide a high degree of control over recreational fishing mortality.

26. 7 Principles of Integrated Recreational Management • Management should be based on a system of strong angling rights. • Angling rights should be assigned to groups as well as individuals in recreational fisheries. • Management should be decentralized • with limited management authority devolved to and shared with local organizations and governing institutions. • Cost recovery should be applied to recreational fishery management

27. Community-Based Recreational Fisheries Management • Angling Management Organizations • Combine • Community-based management • Local control • Strong angling rights • Exclusive right to a share of the TAC • Satisfy the 7 principles of integrated management • Scientifically sound

28. Community-Based Recreational Fisheries Management • The hallmark of the proposed approach is • the devolution of management authority within a rights-based framework • The details of on-the-ground AMO development and management are to be left largely to stakeholders • in this case those involved in the recreational GOM reef fish fishery

29. Rights & duties Ownership Membership Management measures Access to the fishery Quota trading Funding/financing Spatial attributes Initial allocation Quota AMO shares Eligibility Attributes of Quota AMO shares Scope & size of AMOs Monitoring & enforcement Transition Design Elements

30. Rights & duties Ownership Membership Management measures Access to the fishery Quota trading Funding/financing Spatial attributes Initial allocation Quota AMO shares Eligibility Attributes of Quota AMO shares Scope & size of AMOs Monitoring & enforcement Transition How would you design a community recreational fishery management organization?

31. Breakout Session

32. An approach: AMOs Sutinen, J.G. and R.J. Johnston. 2003. Angling Management Organizations: Integrating the Recreational Sector into Fishery Management. Marine Policy 27: 471-487 (November).

33. Angling Management Organizations • AMOs are non-governmental organizations • comprised of groups of those with interests in the recreational fishery • typically recreational anglers • Angling rights are assigned to AMOs, • through an assignment of a share of the recreational total allowable catch (TAC) applicable to each AMO

34. Angling Management Organizations • Individual anglers • Own shares in a particular AMO, • much as one might own shares or stock in a private corporation. • May trade shares in AMOs • AMOs own quota shares • AMOs may trade quota much like traditional IFQs • Individual anglers do not own quota shares

35. Angling Management Organizations • An exclusive right • to determine how to use its share of the recreational TAC; • Shareholders of an AMO possess a collective right • to manage harvest • Authority • to implement measures to optimize socioeconomic objectives;

36. Angling Management Organizations • A non-governmental organization of anglers; • Financially independent and sustainable; • AMOs are for-profit organizations • AMO stock has value

37. Angling Management Organizations • Provides equal opportunity to fish • to all anglers. • All anglers – whether or not they are shareholders • Have an equal opportunity to • acquire a unit of the AMO’s harvest right, • i.e. to acquire the right to catch a unit of the quota • Purchase a license, punch card, or fish tag

38. Angling Management Organizations • Attributes of AMOs • An exclusive right to determine how to use its share of the recreational TAC; • Authority to implement measures to optimize socioeconomic objectives; • A non-governmental organization of anglers; • Financially independent and sustainable; • Provides equal opportunity to fish to all recreational anglers.

39. How would AMOs work? • An AMO would be allocated a share of the TAC each year • E.g., 1.0 million lbs • The AMO would have the right and responsibility to manage its quota • The AMO would set the management measures • Bag limit • Season (open days the recreational fishery) • Other measures

40. Implementation • Scope & size • Different for each AMO • May be defined by any or all of the following • Geographically, • By harvest category (charter, head, not-for-hire) • By species • Optimal S&S unknown ex ante • Start large, one each in Eastern & Western GOM • Facilitate separation into smaller AMOs

41. Implementation • Transition authority • Facilitate formation of provisional AMOs • Limited time frame (e.g., 3 years) • Develop plan for managing its share of the TAC(s) • Appointed & responsible to Secretary of Commerce • Expert staff & budget • Members with • Privatization experience • Business management experience • Fishery management experience, plus • Recreational sector representatives

42. Expected Achievements • Full integration of the recreational fishery • in the management system, • Sustainable utilization • of fishery resources, • Optimal socioeconomic benefits • to anglers & coastal communities, • Financially sustainable management • of recreational fishery resources,

43. Expected Achievements • Self-sufficiency and self-determination, • Professional staffs • to guide management and negotiate with government and other stakeholders, • Greater compliance with regulations • by anglers, • Superior means of resolving conflicts among stakeholders,

44. Expected Achievements • Greater balance of influence and power among stakeholders in political and commercial marketplaces • since AMOs are the recreational equivalents of commercial quota owner associations & companies

45. Other Options • Status quo • Is inferior to all other management alternatives • Superior to status quo, but not preferred • Sub-regional recreational councils • Sub-regional recreational advisory committees • State & local management • Not preferred because • Angling rights are not strengthened • Weak accountability

46. Other Options • IFQs in the for-hire sector • Superior to options above • Alaska halibut charter IFQs • Applying IFQs to all components of the recreational sector is problematic • E.g., noncompliance by not-for-hire fishers

47. Conclusions • AMOs are superior to other options • because of the desirable mix of incentives created by the proposed structure of these community-based organizations • Elsewhere • we also develop a practical strategy for implementing a network of AMOs in the red snapper fishery, based on prior work in the establishment of fishery co-management.