9th Florida State University Mote Symposium
Abstracts
(Alphabetical by Author; ♦ invited talk; ◊ contributed talk; • rapid poster presentation; * presenting author, YI Young Investigator)
Are Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries Sufficiently Large? (YI, Talk)
Eréndira Aceves-Bueno1, Jorge Cornejo-Donoso2,3, Steve J. Miller1 , Steven D. Gaines1
1 Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, Santa Barbara CA ; 2University of California Santa Barbara CA ; 3Universidad Austral de Chile, Centro Trapananda, Coyhaique, Chile
Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) are gaining renewed attention as a potential tool for sustainable fisheries management in small-scale fisheries. This growing popularity comes despite the fact that there are still unresolved questions about the most effective TURF designs. One of the key questions is the role of TURF size in their efficacy both from ecological and social standpoints. This study explores the expected effects of existing TURF sizes on yields for TURF systems in Chile, México and Japan. We calculated the expected effect of larval dispersal and adult movement on yields for TURFs in each system with and without cooperation among neighboring TURFs. Our results show that the analyzed TURF systems fall into three main categories a) TURFs that are of adequate size to eliminate the expected negative effects of both adult and larval movement, b) TURFs that are large enough to eliminate the expected negative effects of adult movement, but not the effects of larval dispersal c) TURFs that are too small to eliminate the expected impacts on yield of both adult and larval movement. We found evidence that under the last condition strong cooperation among TURFs occurs. These analyses improve the existing theoretical framework for TURF design. They also provide empirical evidence that complementary management tools can arise when natural and social constraints prevent the construction of TURFs of an optimal size.
The habitat connection: ecological considerations for linking management to user rights in temperate region mixed-gear fisheries (a comparative analysis of TURFs in Mexico and Chile)
Frank Alcock1 and Evann Soltys-Gilbert1
1New College of Florida
This paper will assess and analyze the experience with Territorial User Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) in two Latin American countries: Mexico and Chile. The paper will begin with a brief discussion of TURFs that situates them in a broader category of “exclusive” rights-based fishing. TURF design elements will then be discussed with an emphasis on how different design elements affect a range of equity and efficiency criteria. The next section of the paper will emphasize the significance of the institutional landscape within which TURF programs are situated. These include both fisheries regulatory structures as well as a broader set of political institutions. The next two sections of the paper will provide aggregate case studies of Mexico and Chile, respectively. The aggregate case studies will assess the relative performance of TURF programs, the degree of variation in program design elements within each country, and the interplay between TURF programs and the regulatory and political structures in which they are embedded. The final substantive section of the paper will compare observations across countries with a focus on the perceived influence of political institutions. The paper will address multiple questions in the program overview in addition to contributing to the collection of case studies.
Community-based Pride campaigns for marine fisheries sustainability in Latin America: a prelude to Fish Forever elements of success (Poster)
Alejandro Arrivillaga1, Ulises Mendez1, Tjerk van Rooij1, Pablo Granados1, Nakul Saran1
1Rare, Bogota
Fish Forever, an initiative of Environmental Defense Fund, Rare, and the Sustainable Fisheries Group of University of California-Santa Barbara, is promoting empowerment of the world’s coastal small-scale fishing communities to create fishing areas that provide fishers with exclusive access while building community stewardship to set up and manage fisheries recovery zones. Acknowledging that the process to go from no management to effective marine fisheries management and conservation is long and complex, including many steps like coastal area zoning, MPA siting and enforcement, and community organization, Rare has launched social marketing Pride campaigns to foster behavior change in stakeholders and catalyze community-based marine fisheries conservation and sustainable management in several Latin American countries. The campaigns implement actions towards the promotion of exclusive access to traditional fishing areas, Fisheries Replenishment Zones, sustainable fishing gear adoption, and alternative incomes, with the overall goal to reduce overfishing and improve food security, while promoting community participation in fisheries management. The process engages communities to value and take pride of their fisheries and leads to the adoption of sustainable practices. The Fish Forever initiative has identified eight elements necessary to achieve sustainability in coastal fisheries: Exclusive Access Privileges, Fish Recovery Zones, Percent of TURF in Reserve Status, Monitoring and Evaluation, Local Enforcement System, Community Support, Fishery Management, Links to Markets, and Fisheries Policy. This presentation will show how past Pride campaigns have approached these elements at different levels.
♦Geospatial analysis for understanding the dynamics of customary management systems in Melanesia
Shankar Aswani*
Rhodes University, South Africa
In this paper, I explore the challenges and opportunities of using geospatial analysis to better understand the dynamics of customary management (CM) systems (local ecological knowledge and sea tenure systems) in Melanesia. The use of geospatial methods (Participatory GIS/ Remote Sensing) can help in the analysis of various dimensions of human behaviors/perceptions and concomitant impact on the natural environment in the context of customary management. This kind of research is fundamental for the development of hybrid management systems that combine CM with modern fishery management for designing regulatory measures to protect functional groups like parrotfish, minimize user conflicts, and to develop marine protected areas.
♦The habitat connection: ecological considerations for linking management to user rights in temperate region mixed-gear fisheries.
Peter Auster*1 and James Lindholm2
1Mystic Aquarium and University of Connecticut; 2California State University Monterey Bay
One of the hallmarks of the successful implementation of TURFs (Territorial Use Rights for Fishing) is the low impact that fishing and fishing gear has had on seafloor habitats and associated ecological communities. This outcome is in part due to the incentive to conserve recruitment bottleneck habitats and the role they play in the productivity and resilience of target species. Here we explore the challenges of conserving seafloor habitats in outer continental shelf fisheries with diverse target taxa, high spatial overlap, and multiple types of bottom contact gear, based on multi-scale ecological interactions with habitats and links to productivity. Further, we explore incentives for conserving seafloor habitats based on user rights and nested within an ecosystem-based fishery management framework. While uncertainty across multiple levels of organization persist, risk averse strategies based on current ecological understanding can address increasing probabilities of year-class success for target species, recovery of depleted populations, increasing ecological resilience, minimizing endangerment of associated species, and sustaining the delivery of ecological goods and services to coastal communities and the larger economy.
Benefits and Tradeoffs of Ecuador’s Community Mangrove Concessions and Implications for Mangrove-Associated Fisheries(YI, Talk)
Christine M. Beitl, University of Maine
After decades of deforestation, over 40% of Ecuador’s mangroves are now protected by custodias, agreements between the Ministry of Environment and 51 community associations comprised of small-scale fishers. The ten-year concessions form part of Ecuador’s strategy to employ participatory approaches for mangrove conservation and sustainable fisheries. Since 2000, artisanal fishers have collaborated with NGOs and universities to design management plans outlining boundaries and locally-specific rules-of-use. Drawing on ethnographic and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) data, this research explores the social, ecological, and economic tradeoffs in governance outcomes in the fishery for mangrove cockles (Anadara spp.), bivalve mollusks harvested during low tide periods by artisanal fishers. Communities with custodias are empowered by a win-win case of mangrove conservation with further economic implications for the productivity of mangrove-associated fisheries. At the institutional level, the new property arrangements have created conditions that promote habitat health, as well as larger catch and shell sizes. However, the new institutional arrangements do not necessarily provide incentives for individuals to harvest shells sustainably (according to the size regulations imposed by current policies) as there are no differences in average shell sizes collected by members of associations versus independent harvesters. In consideration of community-level interactions on a larger geographic scale, artisanal fishers without custodias of their own have sometimes been displaced, potentially deflecting problems of overexploitation to the remaining open-access areas. Understanding tradeoffs in outcomes of this integrated approach to coastal management may provide valuable insights for TURFs and other new paradigms in marine governance such as ecosystem-based management.
Territorial User Rights in The Gambia: Successful enabling conditions and stakeholder empowerment in the artisanal sole fishery (YI, Poster)
Kristine Beran*1, Karen Kent1, Dawda Saine2, and Elin Torell1
1University of Rhode Island; 2National Sole Co-Management Committee,
Exclusive territorial user rights for fisheries (TURFs) are rare in West Africa. The artisanal sole fishery in The Gambia, however, is an exception. Key factors for the success of TURFs in the artisanal sole fishery are attributed to stronger enabling conditions for community-based fisheries management and stakeholder empowerment. Amendments to fisheries legislation gave Ministerial authority to establish special management areas and community fisheries centers for the purpose of community-based fisheries conservation and management. Under this framework, a co-management plan was developed through a multi-stakeholder process granting the National Sole Co-Management Committee, comprised of community and government fisheries representatives, exclusive use rights to the sole and marine catfish fishery within a special management area, covering 121,245 hectares.
Despite exclusive rights to this territory, the open access nature of fisheries in The Gambia and its shared stock with Senegal could potentially lead to overcapacity, especially if the sole fishery in The Gambia obtains Marine Stewardship Council certification, which it is currently seeking. This presentation will highlight lessons from a University of Rhode Island fisheries improvement initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, which aims to increase the long-term capacity for co-management and reduce post-harvest loss – with the end goal of benefitting stakeholders socially and economically.
The Gambian sole fishery case showcases the necessary enabling conditions for viable TURFs in West Africa. Together with an oyster-fishery co-management initiative, which recently earned women exclusive harvesting rights in the Tanbi-Wetlands National Park, the Gambian sole fishery shows that TURFs are possible in the African context.
Antigua’s community-based no-take reserves: Developing a bottom-up TURF for coral reef ecosystems (YI, Talk)
Ruleo A Camacho1 and Dr. Robert S Steneck1
1University of Maine
Antigua’s coral reefs are among the most degraded in the Caribbean, with low coral cover, abundant macroalgae and very low herbivore abundance. Strong evidence indicates overfishing as a major driver of this pattern. However, this phase shift to macroalgal reefs occurred so long ago that most stakeholders today have never seen a healthy reef ecosystem. Thus, many of the ecosystem services provided by healthy reefs are not realized and may not even be imagined among the current cadre of fishermen. No-take reserves have proven to be effective in increasing herbivore abundance, reducing harmful macroalgae and increasing the abundance of juvenile and adult corals. While marine protected areas have been established in Antigua, most are “paper-parks” with little compliance due to inadequate management, enforcement and low community support. In 2014, I developed a community-based, co-managed no-take reserve managed chiefly by fishermen in the area. One of my objectives is to make this a demonstration project to illustrate to the fishing community the positive effects of limiting fishing pressure on herbivorous fish. Approximately half of the local fishermen were interviewed to solicit information on the status and history of fishing. Majority of the interviewees (80%) indicated fishing was declining and over half of them indicated that overfishing played a role in the decline. Most participants (60%) felt their fishing practices were not sustainable and provided fisheries related management recommendations. The local fishermen supported the creation of a demonstration reserve and buoys demarcating the area, and assisted with monitoring for compliance.
♦Emerging needs to consolidate a national coastal TURFs system: Lesson after two decades in Chile
Juan Carlos Castilla1; Joshua Cinner2; C. Josh Donlan3,4; Stefan Gelcich1,3
1 Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile; 2James Cook University; 3Advanced Conservation Strategies, Spain; 4Cornell University
As declines of marine resources and biodiversity increase, Territorial User Rights for Fisheries (TURFs) are becoming a tool that is being widely promoted to enhance the sustainability of small-scale fisheries. Chile is at the forefront of establishing TURFs for small-scale fisheries management. In 1991, Chile established a national TURF policy which gave legal authority to assign collective exclusive access rights to artisanal fisher organizations. In 2010, there were several hundred small-sized TURFs decreed to fisher organizations in different biophysical and socio-economic settings. TURFs target a few key benthic species commercialized in national and mostly Asian markets. Research assessing the TURF implementation process has generally been based on a few case studies and show high heterogeneity in performance. We present the survey results of 535 fishers from 63 different organizations. The survey consisted of two open ended questions to explore the main problems and benefits of having a TURF. We also sampled 63 presidents of fisher organizations to explore how they perceive the objectives and accomplishments of TURFs. Key problems include increased costs associated with surveillance and poaching, and the variability and sometimes lack of financial returns. Despite problems, TURFs have provided incentives for innovation and stewardship and fishers are generally unwilling to relinquish them. We highlight needs to strengthen and scale the TURFs system; including reinforcing collaborations between organizations, the development of mixed aquaculture-stocking activities and TURF-reserve systems, biodiversity offsets, traceability, and what we call BIO+ seafood—products that have associated and verified biodiversity benefits created by the same fishers extracting the seafood.
♦Insights from co-management: what works and what doesn’t in co-managing coral reefs.
Joshua Cinner*
James Cook University
TURFs are a form of devolved governance, where local people are responsible for making decisions, and enforcing rules over marine resources. However, little is known about how devolved governance outcomes are related to specific institutional arrangements (such as the types of particular, rules in use and the forums for developing those rules). I surveyed 960 resource users from 42 communities across five countries to examine how people’s perceptions of livelihood and compliance outcomes are related to the: (1) number of rules in use; (2) specific configurations of rules; and (3) type of co-management arrangement in place. Results showed that perceived compliance was lower when >2 rules were in use, suggesting that the complexity of regulations can hinder compliance. Additionally, resource users under locally managed protected areas and customary management arrangements were more likely to perceive beneficial livelihood outcomes than users under national park and devolved governance arrangements. TURFs were among the least complied with rules, suggesting the need to couple TURF legislation with the enforcement capacity.
Fisheries Forums: Engaging Florida Coastal Communities in Exploring Place-Based Cooperative Governance.
J. Dutka-Gianelli*1, C. C. Crandall1, E. Staugler2, J. Hazell2, J. Struve1, K. Leber3, and K. Lorenzen3
1University of Florida (UF), 2Florida Sea Grant, 3Mote Marine Laboratory
Opportunities for stakeholder engagement are important components of natural resource management, and collaborative approaches integrating stakeholders’ feedback have proven advantageous in managing fisheries. Additionally, shifting towards local or regionally focused management allows spatially differentiated resource conditions to be accounted for. Together, spatially differentiated management considering local resource needs and including opportunities for stakeholder input could result in enhanced resource stewardship. In this study we developed cooperative approaches and tested processes and tools that facilitate place-based governance of Florida’s coastal fisheries through the development of local, stakeholder-driven “fisheries forums.”
Forums were piloted in Sarasota Bay and Charlotte Harbor, with the objective to connect anglers, scientists, resource managers, and citizens while providing unique opportunities for discussion on local fisheries-related topics. Forum goals included creating opportunities for stakeholder participation in the management decision-making process, enhancing understanding of local fisheries issues and natural resources, and facilitating long-term stakeholder engagement in management. The forums process has consisted of stakeholder meetings in each area. The researchers’ role was to facilitate a stakeholder-driven process. Initial meetings focused on defining forum structure in a process led by participants. In following meetings stakeholders brainstormed and selected high-priority topics for discussion and potential future action. Local scientists participated in meetings throughout, sharing fisheries science information. Thus far, a number of topics have been identified that stakeholders feel impact local fisheries, and forum participants have begun to identify potential paths forward to address these issues. The forums also became a venue for networking and improving relationships among stakeholders, scientists and decision-makers.
From TURF to market: a value-aggregating mechanism for fish products from traditional communities (Talk)
Guilherme F. Dutra1, Marine L. M. Nunes1, Eduardo F. Amargo1, and Danieli M. Nobre1
1Conservation International Brazil
Extractive Reserves (RESEX) are the category of Brazilian National Protected Areas System that best represent Territorial Use Rights for Fishers. There are now 25 Federal RESEX established in coastal and marine habitats along the Brazilian coast, hosting about 60.000 fisher families. Although they produce high quality fish both from the health and sustainability perspectives, these communities face difficulties in selling their products at fair prices for reasons related to a lack of storage capacity, complex logistics, dependence on middlemen, and competition with illegal and unregulated products. Conservation International Brazil (CI-Brazil), in partnership with CONFREM (National Commission for Strengthening the Coastal and Marine Extractive Reserves) and ICMBio (The Brazilian Agency for Protected Areas) developed the +Sustainable Fisheries program - which combines Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIPs) and a low cost Traceability System – in order to further stimulate best practices and create new routes to markets for sustainable artisanal fisheries products. The program´s focus is: (1) Promote and support the improvement of fisheries management in TURF systems (mainly Extractive Reserves); (2)Develop and support implementation of Fisheries Improvement Projects following the MSC protocol and added socioeconomic indicators; (3) Implement a low cost traceability system, allowing online consultation, bringing transparency to the product chain, to encourage the development of Brazilian sustainable seafood market. Two case studies illustrate efforts and lessons learned thus far – the mangrove crab fisheries of the Canavieiras (Bahia state, Northeast Brazil) and São João da Ponta (Pará state, Northern Brazil) RESEX. The perspective is making this mechanism available for locally managed fisheries in all Brazil and Americas.
Innovating management bivalve fisheries in Mexico
Francisco J. Fernandez-Rivera Melo*1, Maria Jose Espinosa-Romero1, Mario Rojo1, Gaspar Soria2 and Jorge Torre1
1 Comunidad y Biodiversidad, Sonora, México; 2Centro Nacional Patagonico
Bivalve fisheries have been developed in the Gulf of California since mid-last century. Interest on these resources has been increasing in recent decades because these products are considered a delicacy for the seafood cuisine. Overfishing since the 70´s has resulted in a drastic decrease in catch volumes, hindering the natural recovery of these species, sometimes causing the extinction of local banks of such species. Overexploitation has been mainly caused by a lack of governmental attention to this fishery, the open access, and the over-capitalization of the fishing fleet. This work demonstrates through a case study analysis that small-scale fishers can self-organize to design and implement novel schemes of integrated and spatial management of these species. These schemes involve the implementation of fishing refugia and individual quotas and the use of three existing management instruments: permits for mariculture, permits for research, permits for commercial fishing. The case studies under the mariculture permits involve seeding and fatten up of penshell species. These results present key elements to advance management of bivalve species in Mexico.
♦Scaling TURFs in Belize
Rod Fujita*1, Lawrence Epstein1, and Jessica Landman1
1Environmental Defense Fund
Belize recently committed to establishing territorial user rights for fishing, called Managed Access in Belize, which provide secure access privileges to eligible fishermen, throughout its territorial waters. A deliberate scaling strategy emphasizing participatory processes was implemented over three years to achieve this milestone and expand the program nationwide from two pilot sites. Two pilot sites were established in 2011 which encompassed varied ecological and social conditions to maximize learning applicable to scaling to diverse sites. Participatory processes were used to identify fishery management challenges as perceived by fishermen, managers and other stakeholders, and to build consensus on solutions. A participatory science team comprised of government and NGO scientists synthesized available data and produced data-limited assessments of stock status. This team also led a series of workshops for fishermen, NGOs, and fisheries agency staff to develop fishery management objectives, performance indicators, reference values, and harvest control rules. This adaptive management framework is being formalized into fishery management plans. Stringent monitoring requirements are attached to the Managed Access fishing permits in order to generate fishery dependent data streams to complement fishery independent data collected by the government and NGO partners, all of which are important for the adaptive management framework. It is recognized that certain challenges may not be amenable to the Managed Access solution through this strategy. For example, other mechanisms will likely be required to manage pelagic and deep water fisheries of more mobile and migratory stocks.
♦Beyond TURFs and towards polycentric governance of artisanal fisheries in Chile: Challenges, opportunities and the need for knowledge integration approaches
Stefan Gelcich*1,2, Rodrigo Estevez1, Alejandra Pinto3, Gabriel Jerez3, Lorena Burotto3, Nicole Maturana3, Monica Catrilao3, Juan Carlos Castilla1,2
1 Center for Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES) & Centro de Conservación Marina, Departamento de Ecologia, Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
2 Laboratorio Internacional en Cambio Global, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Esporles, España
3 Unidad de Recursos Bentónicos, Subsecretaria de Pesca y Acuicultura, Valparaiso, Chile
Marine governance is increasingly shifting towards the development of new multilevel, polycentric participatory forms. In Chile, polycentric governance has manifested in a rescaling of artisanal fisheries governance, mixing “top- down” directives with “bottom-up” approaches in which fishers participate directly in policy implementation. In accordance with this tendency, Chile has recently passed legislation to create what have been termed Management Plans (Law 20657; 2013). The Management Plan legal framework allows the fisheries agencies, in a joint process with artisanal fishers and the fishing industry, to create a multi-stakeholder management committee and a fishery management plan for what are currently de facto open access areas which must complement an existing network of territorial user rights for fisheries. Here we synthesize the current experience and challenges which have emerged with the implementation of the management plan policy with respect to benthic resources. We also explore ways in which multiple knowledge systems can be operationalized within this new policy arena. We specifically draw upon participatory Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), which seeks to promote trust, understanding and democracy through effective public participation in decisions that involve local knowledge, value judgments and scientific data, as a way to guide knowledge integration and treatment of uncertainty within management plans. The study uses the example of the artisanal bull-kelp cochayuyo fishery, in the local council of Navidad, as a way to empirically ground the potential contribution of participatory MCDA to inform the implementation of polycentric governance approaches, as defined through the management plans policy.
Scaling up and Incorporating TURFs in an Ecosystem-based pilot in eastern Maine (YI, Talk)
Carla Guenther1,2, Robin Alden1, Ted Ames1,2, Jim Wilson2 and Bob Steneck2
1Penobscot East Resource Center, PO Box 27, Stonington ME 04681, 2School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono ME 04469
Eighty percent of the fishery value along the Maine coast comes from TURF-like fisheries. Lobster dominates with over 75% of the State’s total value; and often the third most valuable fishery in the U.S. In stark contrast, non-TURF, federally managed fin fisheries in the Gulf of Maine have experienced local extirpations and economic extinction. The Gulf’s ocean currents established two biogeographic zones separated by Penobscot Bay in the middle of Maine’s coast. Socioeconomic conditions are also distinct in these two areas; with high dependency on fishery landings and few alternate economic opportunities in eastern Maine. Climate change effects on new and extant species’ distributions are already observed here, in one of the fastest warming areas of the global oceans. The declines in the non-TURF fisheries have increasingly reduced economic flexibility of fishermen, yet a vibrant small scale fishery and community based culture endures in eastern Maine. We report on efforts by members of the industry, NGOs, Penobscot East in particular, academics, state and federal agencies to move toward an ecosystem-based rights, licensing and management system that builds on the State’s tradition of successful TURFs. To scale up and establish a hierarchical TURF system in eastern Maine- a place that is home to more than 50 fishing villages along 2500 km of coastline- will require a responsive and adaptive institutional and scientific structure that facilitates ecosystem-based management facing uncertain climate change outcomes and timelines. We discuss our approach, ideas for this structure, and the challenges for transitioning to a new system.
Implementing property rights-based management in small-scale fisheries: key enabling conditions to achieve social, economic and ecological outcomes (YI, Talk)
Elodie Le Cornu*1, Elena M. Finkbeiner1,2, Shireen Rahimi1, Rebecca Martone1, Adam L. Ayers3, John N. Kittinger4, Stefan Gelcich5, Natalie Ban6, Christina Hicks1,7, Fiorenza Micheli2, Xavier Basurto8, Josh Cinner7, Eddie Allison9, Rebecca Gruby10, Larry Crowder1,2
1Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, 2Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, 3University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 4Conservation International, 5Pontificia Universidad Cato ́ lica de Chile, 6University of Victoria, 7James Cook University, Townsville, 8Duke Marine Laboratory, 9University Of Washington, 10Colorado State University
Globally, there is substantial momentum in implementing property rights-based management approaches, like TURFs or ITQs, in small-scale fisheries (SSFs), driven in part by funders as well as scientists and NGOs. We developed a general theory of change for implementing property-rights based management approaches to SSFs that unpacks key enabling conditions needed to achieve long-term social, ecological and economic outcomes. While the processes behind these well-intentioned initiatives sometimes fail or derail along the way, there is a real opportunity to improve property rights-based interventions in SSFs and avoid unintended consequences. Drawing on empirical evidence from 125 SSFs case studies, affecting over 500 communities around the globe, that underwent an intervention devolving collective-choice-level right(s) (i.e., management, exclusion and alienation rights), we assess the key attributes of SSFs and the critical enabling conditions leading to positive social, ecological and economic outcomes. By doing so, we hope to provide guidance to the policy/management community to improve implementation of fisheries management strategies. Our results suggest that relying on overly-simplistic solutions or promoting one-size-fits-all tools or approaches may not be adequate to achieve multiple long-term outcomes given a particular community. Transferring the dominant narrative based on bioeconomic theories - economic efficiency and ecological sustainability - to SSFs to achieve the triple-bottom line (i.e., social, ecological and economic long-term objectives) will first require a determination if the lack of property rights is the dominant problem, as will taking into consideration important enabling conditions including fostering legitimacy, working with existing institutions, and improving institutional capacity.
♦Designing TURFs to better align fisheries and conservation goals
Sarah E. Lester*1, Gavin McDonald1, Michaela Clemence1, Cody S. Szuwalski1, Dawn T. Dougherty2
1Marine Science Institute and Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106
2National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106
Direct and indirect effects of unsustainable fishing in marine systems create significant fisheries management and conservation challenges. Small-scale fisheries in coastal ecosystems are particularly affected, with important implications for livelihoods and food security. These fisheries are often plagued by weak governance, minimal or no management, and limited data, creating the need for appropriate management approaches that can support productive fisheries and healthy ecosystems – approaches that may necessarily be different than those that are most effective for large-scale commercial fisheries. Property rights are increasingly proposed as a solution to poorly managed fisheries, with spatial property rights, or Territorial User Rights for Fisheries (TURFs), suggested as particularly promising for small-scale coastal fisheries. In theory, TURFs should align fishermen incentives with long-term stewardship, resulting in improved yields and positive conservation outcomes. Here we review the theoretical and empirical evidence for the performance of TURFs in achieving both fisheries and conservation goals, taking into account socioeconomic and ecological factors and the role of fisheries management. Given evidence that TURFs can struggle to achieve fisheries and/or conservation objectives, we then explore the potential to obtain better outcomes by coupling TURFs with no-take marine reserves (“TURF-reserves”), again evaluating both theoretical and empirical evidence. Lastly, we apply a spatially-explicit age-structured model of a hypothetical target fish stock to evaluate tradeoffs in terms of biomass conservation and fishery yields; we examine different scenarios of management style (e.g. open access vs. TURFs), management effectiveness (e.g. optimal vs. suboptimal) and varying reserve size. We conclude that TURF-reserves can be a successful management strategy for small-scale coastal fisheries if designed appropriately, assuming that the TURF is successful at incentivizing effective fisheries management.
The times they are a-changin´: the radical and successful transformation of the Galician (NW Spain) artisanal shellfisheries
Gonzalo Macho*1, Rosana Ourens2 , Sebastián Villasante3, Beatriz Nieto4, Inés Naya5 , Juan Freire6, Emilio Abella7, José Manuel Parada8, Andrés Simón9, Antonio García-Allut10, Ricardo Arnaiz11, Elsa Vázquez12, José María da Rocha12, Jose Alberto de Santiago3, Ana Parma13, Jose Lobo Orensanz13, José Molares11
1 Universidade de Vigo, 2Stanford University, 3Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 4World Wildlife Fund Spain, 5Universidade de Coruña, 6Teamlabs, 7Cofradía de Vilanova de Arousa, 8O Canto da Balea, S. Coop., 9Lonxa de Campelo, 10Fundación Lonxanet, 11Xunta de Galicia, 12Universidade de Vigo, 13Centro Nacional Patagónico
Shellfisheries in Galicia (NW Spain) have undergone profound changes in the last 25 years, from a history of underdevelopment and overexploitation, towards a new more resilient and sustainable marine social-ecological system. A particular group, the S-fisheries (small-scale, spatially-structured and targeting sedentary stocks), have developed in Galicia a unique management model based on TURFs. In this study we have identified and analyzed the factors involved in the transformation of the Galician S-fisheries in several areas: (i) governance and institutional framework, (ii) management plans, (iii) access rights, (iv) fishersˈ organizations and the role of women, (v) technical-scientific support, (vi) surveillance and enforcement, and (vii) seafood markets. Before the 90s, S-fisheries were weakly regulated, even more poorly enforced, and had no management plans for the few species harvested that were sold in local seafood markets. In the last three decades Galician S-fisheries underwent profound transformations that involved a co-management system and territorial rights that allowed the development of professional fishersˈ organizations in a collective decision-making process. Radical shifts in regulations, enforcement, fishersˈ professionalization, monitoring and technical support seem to be the key agents of change responsible for the good health of most of the S-fisheries, which has ultimately lead to high economic revenues and social benefits for coastal communities. We analyze these positive changes, but also point to several weaknesses of the system, some of them chronic problems and other emergent, that need to be addressed (e.g. cases of overexploitation and serial depletion, weak governance and management systems of the fishersˈ organizations, scale mismatches).
Scaling TURFs and Reserves in the Philippines (Talk)
Roquelito Mancao*1, Julius Guirjen1, and Emilie Litsinger2
1RARE; 2Environmental Defense Fund
The Philippines are characterized by high levels of both human population growth and fishing pressure. Millions of Filipinos depend on marine ecosystems for their livelihoods and food security. Despite policies in place prohibiting destructive fishing practices and spatial protections like marine reserves, fish stocks continue to decline and illegal fishing continues to take place. There is a unique opportunity in the Philippines to build from the existing governance structure and experience creating marine reserves to empower fishers to steward their fisheries through the implementation of TURFs and reserves. One key to success will be to scale this system by capturing the benefits they confer on each other: TURFs allow fishers to capture the benefits of the reserves and rewards their conservation efforts by reducing free riders and also empowers them to become stewards of the resource and ecosystems. We have completed a participatory data collection and stepwise design process that was guided by science and draws from local ecological knowledge at three sites. That process resulted in TURF and reserve designs and implementation plans tailored to each site: an island TURF with one reserve, a bay wide TURF with three reserves, and a coast-wide TURF with five reserves. Each site is beginning the implementation process, which will include continued community outreach, social marketing campaigns, enforcement capacity building, diversification of livelihoods, and the development of formalized fishery management plans. Lessons learned from these sites will serve as a model for replication in the Philippines to create TURF and reserve networks.
Propagating TURFs through partnerships: Lessons from Maine’s co-managed soft-shell clam fishery (YI, Poster)
Elisabeth Maxwell*1 and Teresa R. Johnson1
1University of Maine, Orono
The State of Maine’s (USA) soft shellfish clam fishery is managed by a unique co-managed TURF system that involves shared governance between local communities and the government. This fishery is the state’s second most valuable fishery, after its iconic and co-managed lobster fishery, and landings over the last few decades have been relatively stable despite myriad threats. Of the 111 communities with shellfish habitat, 73 participate in this co-managed TURF system. Communities have the right to restrict entry and harvest levels, establish open and closed areas, set seasons, charge user fees, and establish residency requirements, while also being held accountable for enforcement and developing conservation programs. The state retains the authority for closing harvesting areas to ensure public health. In order to better understand how this TURF system functions, we conducted extensive ethnographic research across this large study area (~5500 km coastline). Interviews targeted shellfish committee members and state and local officials involved in shellfish management and observations occurred at local shellfish committee meetings across the study region. We found that interesting variation exists in terms of how local management institutions are structured and function. Adoption of conservation practices in this TURF system appears driven by factors such as size of the resource, shellfish habitat losses from pollution, dependence on the resource, economic conditions, and local capacity and support institutions. Our study suggests that propagating TURFs would require strong community partnerships with the state and other local support organizations in order to enhance local monitoring, enforcement, and conservation capabilities.
♦Values and opportunities created through territorial use rights in fisheries
Bonnie J. McCay*, Rutgers University
As place-based institutions, systems involving territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) can realize goals of both ecosystem-based and community-based marine resource management. TURFs range from broad-scale quota allocations among large geo-political units to very small-scale systems within which specific individuals or groups have well-defined use rights. They are both enabled and constrained by international, national, local and informal laws. They pose challenges to people and enterprises dependent on open access to marine resources and places, and they bear numerous transaction, monitoring, enforcement and other costs to those who work within them and promote them. But they also can provide incentives for values such as sharing resources and intergenerational stewardship; the means for better aligning ecological realities with social institutions; and tools for empowering coastal communities. I explore these ideas through numerous cases from commercial fisheries and shellfisheries in the literature, including some from my research in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
Fostering fisheries management efficiency through collaboration networks: the case of the Kanan Kay Alliance
A. Moreno*1, L. Bourillón1, M. Vélez2, and S. Fulton1
1Comunidad y Biodiversidad A.C., 2The Nature Conservancy
The experience of Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURF) systems worldwide shows that, despite the fact that the design of the system can be reasonably adequate, there is scope for improvement in terms of the effectiveness and efficiency of their implementation. It is widely documented that bio-ecological monitoring of management measures must be undertaken, with fishermen involved in the design and implementation processes of such measures, surveillance, etc. However, what receives less attention is the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration, communication and shared vision, through which government, civil society and fishermen can exchange information, standardize monitoring efforts, enforce surveillance, etc., to improve management capacity of fisheries resources, increase implementation effectiveness and achieve an efficient use of limited resources given to fisheries management. Five years ago, an initiative called ‘Kanan Kay Alliance’ emerged in Mexico: a voluntary, multi-stakeholder collaborative network formed by 40+ organizations (fishing cooperatives, government, NGOs, researchers, philanthropy foundations). The Alliance established a shared vision and collaborative work plan focused on the establishment of No Take Zones within TURFs and Marine Protected Areas across the Mexican Caribbean. Kanan Kay offers a unique space for dialogue between sectors, promotes value-added collaborative actions, tracks agreements and reinforces key initiatives. The Alliance is a collaboration model that grounds management measures in a participatory and inclusive way, fostering their effectiveness and efficiency, as well as potential for reaching scale. This paper documents the process by which Kanan Kay was established, its challenges, opportunities and potential, and defines recommendations for the replication of similar initiatives.
Lessons learned from the Chilean TURF system: recommendations for the implementation of a TURF framework in countries with informal or inexistent territorial use rights (poster)
A. Moreno1, C. Revenga2, F. Ghersi2, and M. Caillaux2
1Comunidad y Biodiversidad, 2The Nature Conservancy
The Chilean TURF system is seen by many as the example to follow to move small-scale coastal fisheries from the current open-access regime to a rights-based management regime. Much of the literature available on Chilean TURFs to date has been extremely useful in providing insights into the system, but it offers only a piecemeal picture of its current situation with respect to biological, socio-economic and governance aspects of the TURF system. For this reason, the Nature Conservancy conducted a comprehensive review of existing literature and information, specifically addressing the governance challenges in making the TURF system a successful management approach for small-scale fisheries in Chile and beyond. This review resulted in a report that highlights the more successful elements of the TURF system, a set of recommendations to improve the Chilean system overall, as well as some of the remaining challenges for their successful implementation in the country. The Nature Conservancy has now taken these lessons from Chile and identified recommendations for the implementation of a TURF framework in Peru and other countries where TURFs do not exist or exist in an informal type of structure; these recommendations are summarized in this paper and are intended to support the design of TURF policies that foster fisheries management reforms, include recommendations from the early stages of designingand setting of an adaptive TURF system, to stakeholder engagement processes, data collection approaches for stock assessment, as well as, monitoring, enforcement andeconomic viability of local fishing communities.
“Fish Forever”: How many, for how long? Measuring conservation and social results across five countries in a global small-scale fisheries initiative (Poster)
Janelle Mueller1, Helen Fox1, Gavin McDonald2, Alejandro Arrivillaga1, Michaela Clemence2, Darmawan1, Rod Fujita3, Kevin Green1, Raymond Jakub1, Kendra Karr1, Jake Kritzer3, Sarah Lester2, Roquelito Mancao1, Enrico Marone1, Sarah Poon3, Pablo “Jong” Rojas1, Bernal Vilela1
1RARE, 2University of California Santa Barbara, 3Environmental Defense Fund
Improving the management of struggling small-scale fisheries has become a major focus of numerous governments and international conservation organizations. The approaches vary by region and by the implementing partners involved, yet some form of co-management has been successful in many contexts. The “Fish Forever” program was launched in February 2014 by Rare, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Sustainable Fisheries Group of UC Santa Barbara to work with governments and communities in Indonesia, the Philippines, Belize, Brazil and Mozambique through the implementation of territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) combined with marine reserves (aka TURF-Reserves). We hypothesize that TURF-Reserves can align incentives and increase the stewardship in small-scale fisheries through two mechanisms: 1) the managed-access of a TURF reduces the ability of non-local fishers to exploit the resource and increases the proportion of total catch available to local households while creating a way to implement catch or effort controls with potentially high levels of compliance; 2) the reserve enables fish stocks to recover within its borders, presumably leading to spillover of these stocks into the nearby TURF. The application of this model in 5 countries with different ecological, cultural, economic, and governance contexts provides an opportunity to evaluate these hypotheses, and the extent to which the model is generalizable. Fish Forever is designed to achieve a variety of social and ecological goals, making comprehensive monitoring and evaluation essential, since these outcomes are the basis of the “benefits exchange” that drives the Fish Forever model.
Local and traditional governance of coastal fisheries in Peru (Talk)
Alexis Nakandakari1, Matias Caillaux2, José Zavala1, Stefan Gelcich3
1Independent Consultant; 2The Nature Conservancy, Peru; 3Universidad Católica de Chile
In Peru, the centralized top-down governance architecture of the artisanal fisheries sector has responded poorly and without consideration of the heterogeneity of the sector. In addition, the open-access nature of the sector has limited collective actions and self-organizing efforts. Despite such an adverse institutional landscape, some fisher associations have been capable of establishing collective action arrangements, and creating informal rules to self-manage their fishing resources as a response to overfishing. This study uses semi-structured interviews and likert-scale questionnaires, based on Ostrom’s socio-ecological system framework, to synthesize the experiences of Peruvian fisher associations that have successfully adopted and sustained self-managing efforts, and also from associations that have failed (n=18). The study specifically synthesizes the main decision-making process and regulations that have led to establish collective actions, and identifies the main lessons behind these local attempts to develop and maintain traditional fisheries institutions. Results of the study contribute in presenting and making visible a comprehensive picture of fisher associations’ realities, and feed into ongoing discussions on how to advance into more participatory artisanal fisheries governance and management in Peru. By understanding existing experiences, which led to self-management, we can identify ways to promote resilience and facilitate equal access, mitigating and informing current trends to implement new coastal zone management policies in Peru.
The case study of the Valdivian Seascape Project (Poster)
L.P. Osman1; R.G. Assef2, and C. Molinet3
1The Nature Conservancy; 2Federación de Pescadores de Corral; 3Instituto de Acuicultura, Universidad Austral de Chile
The Chilean TURF system is the largest most complex experiment in fisheries management in the world seen by many international experts as a shining example to follow for sustainably managing small- scale coastal fisheries. For the past 5 years, The Nature Conservancy has been working closely with fishing associations, fisheries government agencies, and academic institutions to improve and refine the Chilean TURF model and the overall management of artisanal fisheries in Chile based on our work through the Valdivia Seascape Project in Southern Chile. One of the questions that drives our work is why, after 20 years of TURF implementation, have fishermen not yet developed sufficient skills to meet the challenges of managing coastal resources in a sustainable way?
In this context, we focus on three topics: (1) the diagnosis and improvement of fishermen capacities to diversify and maximize ecological and economic TURF performance; (2) exploring and testing market strategies to improve the livelihoods of fishing communities; and (3) understanding the ecological implications of establishing No Take Zones within or between TURGS and the role TURFS play in coastal marine conservation. Our results show that fishing communities present low levels of competitiveness and participation. Therefore, they have few opportunities for innovation or the innovation in technology and applied sciences. Thus, to help fill this gap, we focus on transferring knowledge to fishermen through participatory work, looking to install local capacities and determine social, cultural, productive and management aspects aid to TURF improvement.
When governance is unable of adapting to social change: Why and how to innovate in the management of Galician TURFs (YI, Talk)
Rosana Ouréns1, Inés Naya1, Gonzalo Macho2,3, Inmaculada Alvarez4, Noela Sánchez-Carnero2,5, María José Juan-Jordá6,7, Juan Freire8
1Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, 2Universidade de Vigo Spain, 3University of South Carolina, 4Derecho Público Global, 5Centro Nacional Patagónico, 6AZTI Tecnalia, 7Simon Fraser University, 8Teamlabs Spain
The use of territorial use rights (TURFs) as a tool for community-based fisheries management has greatly increased worldwide in the last decades. Their main potential benefit is a sustainable exploitation of resources because of the active involvement in the management process of the fishery community who have the rights of exploitation. However TURFs are not a panacea, and their success depends on how well they adapt to the characteristics of the socio-ecological system where they are inserted. Here we introduce Galicia (NW Spain) as a case study where the benefits of the TURFs might be reduced because the management system does not respond adequately to the current cultural and social needs.
The fishing sector and markets in Galicia have undergone rapid changes during the last decades. First as a consequence of globalization, urbanization and technological innovations; and currently, as a consequence of a new cultural movement that enhances the local values and the importance of the environmental conservation. These changes, however, are not being incorporated in the management system and the reason is twofold: 1) the low flexibility of the governance system to incorporate new information and adapt to the current context, and 2) the low capacity of the fishing sector to develop innovative projects and to use its high political influence to implement improvements in the management system. We suggest some innovative and holistic actions that should be implemented in order to adapt the management system to the current social and cultural context and improve consequently the efficiency of the TURFs.
Opportunities and precautions for pairing spatial and quota-based fishing rights
Dan Ovando1, Sarah Poon*2, and Chris Costello1
1Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara; 2Environmental Defense Fund
Fishery stakeholders are increasingly interested in implementing Territorial Use Rights for Fishing (TURFs), allocating spatial fishing rights to fishermen to enable and incentivize sustainable harvesting practices. In some contexts, TURFs may be preferred over other rights-based approaches, such as Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs). However, TURFs may not always achieve fishery goals, for example when competition exists within or among TURFs. Under these circumstances there may be value in pairing TURFs with ITQs. We use a bioeconomic model to explore potential outcomes of pairing TURFs with ITQs, and identify conditions under which combining these two approaches may help achieve fishery goals. Our results indicate that ITQs can help overcome some of the economic inefficiencies arising from inter- or intra-TURF competition under certain conditions. For example, when competing TURFs share a migratory stock and have heterogeneous fishing skill, establishing ITQs within each TURF may increase profits while also promoting equity in profitability among TURFs. Inter-TURF ITQs can improve profits when system dynamics are simple, but may have adverse effects when source-sink movement dynamics occur, or when competing TURFs have heterogeneous fishing skill. We also demonstrate that ITQs can act to reduce biomass levels as fleets become more efficient. Our results indicate that integration of TURFs with ITQs can generally provide benefits, but may have negative consequences under specific circumstances. The design of the TURF-ITQ pairing will depend on the relative priority of objectives such as profits, equity and conservation.
Community-¬‐Based Tool for Designing TURF-¬‐Reserves in Data-¬‐Limited Small-¬‐Scale Fisheries (YI)
Rodrigo Oyanedel1, J. Humberstone1, K. J. Moyer1, S. Rodriguez Van Dyck1, K. Shattenkirk1, S. Poon2, G. McDonald1, M. Clemence1, E. Cunningham1
1University of California Santa Barbara, 2Environmental Defense Fund
Territorial Use Rights for Fishing (TURFs) paired with no-take marine reserves (TURF-Reserves) have been proposed as a viable management strategy to achieve both fisheries and conservation goals. By combining fisheries benefits of exclusive access in TURFs with the conservation benefits of spillover and protection in reserves, TURF-Reserves can help small-scale fishing communities improve performance across a range of societal goals. In order for TURF-Reserves to be effective, however, they must be designed to meet the unique biological, social, and economic characteristics and goals of a given locality. While many marine spatial planning tools exist, they are often not appropriate for small-scale fisheries due to intensive data, software expertise, and Internet requirements. We developed a TURF-Reserve Design Tool (TURFtools) that addresses this challenge by providing an easy-to-use Microsoft Excel-based decision support framework to facilitate TURF-Reserve spatial design in small-scale fisheries contexts. The tool consists of a bio-economic model that allows managers in data poor fisheries to translate local ecological knowledge into spatial data and utilize best available science to analyze the relative performance of several TURF-Reserve designs. TURFtools helps communities evaluate tradeoffs between TURF-Reserve design options by providing customizable output charts that display the relative ecological and socio-economic outcomes of each design. TURFtools was designed for initial application in the Fish Forever Philippines initiative but can be customized to new locations or more data rich scenarios. By improving the TURF-Reserve design process, TURFtools aims to empower fishers to better manage their resources to increase catch, improve marine ecosystem health, and achieve a more secure economic future.
Sustainability of the gooseneck barnacle TURF system in Asturias: trends, drivers and basic principles (YI, Talk)
Antonella Rivera*1, Stefan Gelcich2, Lucía García-Flórez3, and José Luis Acuña1
1Universidad de Oviedo, Spain; 2Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; 3Consejería de Agroganadería y Recursos Autóctonos del Principado de Asturias, ijón, Spain.
The Asturian gooseneck barnacle fishery is a unique example of a complex social-ecological system that has been co-managed for the past 20 years. As part of the co-management system fishers are allotted Territorial User Rights for Fishing and an active participation in management strategies in return for detailed data gathering. Here, we used this extensive time-series to assess the sustainability of the Asturian gooseneck barnacle fishery through time and to disentangle the key socio-ecologic drivers for its success. The fishery has succeeded in maintaining or increasing catch per unit effort in all management areas. Additionally, despite the national economic crisis, mean gooseneck barnacle market prices have remained stable in Asturias. Furthermore, the system has received vast public approval, where 73% of the stakeholders have indicated that the only way to maintain a sustainable gooseneck barnacle fishery in Asturias is through the current management regime. The co-management system has primarily achieved the sustainability of the fishery through 4 key characteristics: (1) the continuous incorporation of scientific information and fishers’ knowledge in management frameworks, (2) a matching of management scales with the main life-history traits of the species, (3) empowerment of the resource users and (4) embracing adaptive capacity through flexible management guidelines, resource diversification and selectivity. The Asturian gooseneck barnacle co-management system provides a set of basic principles for TURFs, which may be conducive to sustainable fisheries.
♦Lobster Tales: Lessons from the convergent evolution of TURFs in Maine (US) and Juan Fernández (Chile)
Robert Steneck1*, Ana Parma*, Billy Ernst, and Jim Wilson1*
1University of Maine; 2Centro Nacional Patagónico-CONICET, Argentina
Overexploitation frequently plagues the harvest of common property marine resources in the seemingly endless replay of the Tragedy of the Commons. The evolution of territorial user rights (TURFs) in many small-scale fisheries has been shown to address two problems that characterize common-pool resources: the difficulty to control access to the resources and reducing individual incentives to compete for a larger share of the resource at the expense of others. Two successful TURFs are the trap fisheries for lobsters in Chile’s Juan Fernández islands and the state of Maine in the U.S. In Juan Fernández, fishers actively defend a number individually-owned, discrete fishing spots, known as “marcas”. Maine’s lobstering communities have developed group territories with the strongest exclusivity around permanently inhabited islands. Both fisheries use relatively small day boats and both have a long history of protecting their reproductive and juvenile lobsters. Although both TURFs limited new entrants, concerns about increases in fishing effort prompted formal entry regulations. Despite this, fishing effort has continued to grow. In Juan Fernández power winches increased trap-hauling rates, leading some fishers to advocate trap limits. The TURF system appears to have limited effort on each marca but has not prevented the accumulation of marcas by individual fishers. In Maine, lobster abundance has been increasing for 30 years leading fishers to use larger boats with increased fishing capacity and range (including an expansion to offshore fishing). Nevertheless, trap limits reduced congestion and led to more equitable access. We conclude that both TURFs have addressed the problem of exclusion and have experienced stable or growing populations of lobsters. It is unknown, however, if they have the ability to respond effectively to declining populations.
Assessing the scope for local management regulations in fisheries for widely distributed coastal stocks with limited dispersal: the case of the Florida snook fishery (YI, Poster)
J. Struve, K. Lorenzen, and J. Dutka-Gianelli
University of Florida, School of Forest Resources and Conservation
Some coastal fish stocks are widely distributed but are nonetheless characterized by limited dispersal within their area of distribution, leading to local signals in stock dynamics, calls for locally adapted management regulations and an increased sense of local resource ownership that fosters interest in access restrictions and their potential benefits for the fishery. We present a spatially explicit modeling framework for recreational fisheries operating in such stocks and explore the impact of local variation in fishing effort and severity of environmental disturbances onto local population structure and management alternatives, using common snook in Florida as a case study. Our results show how the spatial distribution of fishing intensity can result in local depletion. Juvenile dispersal and adult movement can reduce the effects of elevated local mortality. Locally adapted regulations (e.g. lowering of harvest or discard mortality or diverting effort) can yield improvements in local and stock-wide fishery performance indicators. The implementation of any local fishing management emerging from spatially explicit assessment or analysis will require further work into the relationship between geographical scale of the assessment and statistical uncertainty in the management emerging from it. Uncertainty in the relationship between recreational effort and fishing mortality will be an additional challenge in the development of local fisheries management approaches based on limited access.
♦TURFs and Collective Fishery Management: Theory and Case Studies
Hirotsugu Uchida*, University of Rhode Island
How can a TURF be effective in managing fisheries? In some sense this is a wrong question to ask. From economics point of view, TURF is a form of rights-based fishery management that can be categorized together with systems such as individual quotas (IQ) and catch share. It is thus just a tool, and the real question is whether it is used appropriately given the context in which it is applied. This paper examines the role of TURFs in the context of fishery co-management, where the latter is defined as collective management by a group of fishermen. The paper argues that underneath socio-demographic characteristics of fishermen groups that affect the outcomes of fishery co-management, which are by definition case-specific, there is a set of common economic factors that affect the likelihood of successful fishery co-management. Theory of clubs is applied as a theoretical foundation, to which the role of TURFs will be characterized. The paper will then present several case studies, mostly from Japanese coastal fisheries, to illustrate the claims.
♦Scaling up TURFS: Feedback, incentives and boundaries in a complex system.
James (Jim) Wilson*, University of Maine
TURFS are effective because they align the scales of human activity and biological response. This makes it possible to learn and adapt. Creating institutions that might be equally effective at a broad scale is problematic because the intrinsically local activity of biological agents does not align well with broad scale human activity. Unlike the human environment there are no (meta)agents in the natural environment that take deliberate collective action at a broad scale. Consequently, feedback about the effect of human activity acquired at a broad scale tends to be ambiguous and the ability to understand causality and to act constructively is impaired, even with very strong economic incentives. The broad scale management problem is finding a way to aggregate relatively good feedback at local levels so that the cumulative effect of local actions can be understood.
The Equity Landscape (YI, Talk)
Becky Twohey Wright*1, Benjamin S. Halpern2,3, Matthew Burgess2, Carissa Joy Klein4, Steve Gaines2
1University of California Santa Barbara, 2The Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, 3Imperial College London, 4University of Queensland
Resource management typically requires limits on human use of natural resources that lead to differences in who pays the costs and who reaps the benefits, as well as tradeoffs among social, economic and ecological management objectives. Understanding the mechanisms and consequences of these equity concerns remains a core question for the design and evaluation of conservation actions. Here we present a new framework for how to think about equity through the lens of getting things done. First we identify different types of equity as being inputs, such as who gets to participate in management decisions, and/or as outputs, such as who gets the benefits of the conservation intervention. We define “the equity landscape” as how a given community the distribution of resources, costs, and benefits. The equity landscape then determines the equity inputs and outputs of a conservation intervention. There are hypothetical scenarios where the equity landscape favors a moderate, low or high degree of equity. Similarly, management may place a moderate, low or high value on equity objectives. This framework allows us to compare and discuss the tradeoffs of where management sets target equity values, and how different contexts might determine equity’s role in conservation success. We survey the literature and applied this framework to different conservation outcomes. In some scenarios, fitting a conservation intervention equity inputs and outputs to the existing equity landscape will lead to the highest probability of success, whereas other scenarios might require deviating from the equity landscape and changing the equity inputs and outputs.
