Operational tools and adaptive management

d) dynamical effectiveness
Political acceptability will often vary both geographically and between different interest
groups. We will concentrate on the political acceptance of the decision makers (e.g.
bureaucrats or politicians) in the relevant fisheries management. The prevalence of a measure
does to some degree indicate the acceptance, though lack of presence does not necessarily
imply lack of political acceptance 5 . Clearly over time political acceptability of tools may
change and we are interested in the current political acceptability.
Cost effectiveness is secured in two possible ways; 1) when there is an aim of improving the
economic performance of a given fishing fleet, and some improvement may be expected to
take place and/or 2) when the aim of the management tool is to conduct the fishery as whole
in the most cost effective way. In the first case, limiting the number of vessel, for instance
using limited licences may improve the economic performance of a vessel group, at least in
the short run. In the second case, an individual transferable quota regime aims at securing that
a limited quota is harvested by those that are willing to pay the highest price for the rights.
The most efficient agents are willing to pay the most, and hence the most cost effective
harvesting takes place.
Ecological effectiveness is characterised by the measure reaching some ecological goal, for
instance securing the stock size at some level, or ensuring that only fish over a certain size is
caught.
Dynamic effectiveness is the securing of the ecological goal over time. I.e. can the
management tool be expected to sustain its ecological aim over time? Note that a tool may not
be ecologically effective instantaneously, but may be so in the long run. In this case it is not
ecologically effective but dynamically effective. There may also be examples of vice versa.
The symbols used for the four assessment criteria are as follows;
Politically acceptable
Cost effective
Ecologically effective
Dynamically effective
We measure the four assessment criteria of the tools according to a “traffic-light” method:
Red: no
Orange: may be
Green: yes
White: irrelevant
A red circle indicates no ecological effectiveness, an orange circle indicates that there may be
ecological effectiveness in some form, a green circle implies that the ecological goal of the
tool is reached, while a white circle states that ecological aims are irrelevant for the tool in
question.
5 Even though the implementation of a policy may be controversial among some stakeholder groups, the fact that
it is implemented implies that it is politically acceptable. Furthermore, some of the tools presented may not have
been implemented, not due to lack of political acceptance, but rather because they are either incompatible with
existing measures, or are superfluous.
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