The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report - Earth Economics

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The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report •“Limited entry for both the trap and trawl fleet. •“Development of a coast-wide spot prawn GIS database, which would identify historic and current fishing areas as well as preferred habitats. •“Coast-wide fisheries-independent population survey of spot prawn resource. •“Evaluation of the effectiveness of the current management scheme” (Larson, in press). Restricted Access Fishery The spot prawn fishery is currently an open-access fishery for both trap and trawl fishers. The full capitalization of both of these fisheries led CDFG to initiate discussions regarding the development of a restricted-access fishery. In February 2000, the California Fish and Game Commission adopted a restricted-access program and set 1 January 1999 as a qualifying date. Any fisher who did not make at least one landing of spot prawns prior to this date will not be included in the restricted-access fishery. To prioritize development of a restricted-access program for the nearshore finfish fishery, CDFG temporarily suspended development of the restricted-access program. Work on the restrictedaccess program for traps recently resumed, with an implementation target date of 1 April 2002 (Reilly, CDFG. Pers. comm., March 2001). At the California Fish and Game Commission meeting in October 2001, the trap restricted-access program was adopted and will become effective in April 2002. The program has two tiers. To qualify for Tier 1 permits, vessels must have had a spot prawn landing prior to 1999. Approximately 17 vessels qualify for Tier 1. Qualifying requirements for Tier 2 permits are ten 1,000-lb. landings by 1998. An estimated 13 vessels qualify for Tier 2 permits. Tier 1 permits are non-transferable; Tier 2 permits are transferable. Observer Program The California Fish and Game Commission considered phasing out the trawl fishery in early 2000. Testimony was heard at the 4 February 2000 Adoption Hearing. Instead of implementing a trawl phase-out, the Commission directed CDFG to develop an on-board observer program funded from an observer fee assessed on all vessels landing spot prawns. A stated reason for the establishment of the observer program was bycatch of overfished groundfish species—e.g., lingcod, canary rockfish, cowcod, bocaccio, and other shelf rockfish species—and concerns about damage to the bottom habitat on which these fish depend. THE ADOPTION HEARING — TESTIMONIES Arguments for the phase-out fell into the following broad categories: •A phase-out of trawl vessels would minimize the impact of trawling on the seafloor, benthic communities, and other fragile marine habitats (i.e., corals). •A phase-out of trawl vessels would reduce the bycatch of vulnerable marine species such as rockfish. •A sustainable fishery requires that the impacts of trawling on marine species and ecosystems be assessed prior to allowing potentially destructive gear such as trawls into the fishery. •Spot prawn trawls operate in the same depth range that depleted rockfish inhabit, with finer, smaller mesh trawls and bigger roller gear than are allowed in the federally managed groundfish fishery. 9 Arguments against the phase-out fell into the following broad categories: •Arguments for the trawl phase-out are founded in a “plethora of misinformation spreading doomsday fears” about the trawl industry. The trawl fishery is “efficient and selective.” •There is no science to justify a trawl phaseout. •A trawl phase-out would cause severe economic hardship to fishers and coastal communities. •Conversion of trawl vessels to trap vessels is not practical or financially viable, and ultimately would negatively effect the trap fishery, which is already fully capitalized. •Rockfish species of ecological concern are found on the continental shelf. The spot prawn trawl fishery takes place on the continental slope. Rockfish bycatch concerns will therefore not be resolved via a trawl phaseout. The CDFG responded by stating: We believe that the proposed spot prawn trawl phase-out is unnecessarily restrictive, places an unfair burden on trawl fishermen, and a conversion of trawl permits to trap permits would result in overcrowding of __________________________________________________________ 9 Recently, the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) adopted trawl-gear restrictions in order to protect vulnerable groundfish species. “Previously, fishers had been allowed to use footropes equipped with large rollers—often truck tires—to target shelf rockfish species residing in high relief habitat. Beginning in 2000, trawl landings of shelf rockfish were prohibited if large footrope trawls (gear with footropes 8 in. in diameter) were onboard the vessel. ...Although the effect of these gear requirements on bycatch of depleted rockfish species has yet to be validated through observation, a review of tow locations from 1999 and 2000 logbooks does suggest that many areas where canary rockfish were previously caught are no longer being trawled” (PFMC 2001). 43
The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report existing trapping grounds with subsequent economic impacts for all trappers. We believe an onboard observer program is needed to assess the type and magnitude of bycatch in trap and trawl fisheries. After a year of data collection, potential bycatch problems in the fisheries can be addressed from a scientific basis. Certain gear restrictions or area closures may become necessary to minimize bycatch, particularly for shelf rockfish species. In addition, the establishment of a restricted-access fishery program for trap and trawl vessels should reduce the amount of fishing effort and its consequent impact (California Fish and Game Commission 2000a). SPOT PRAWN BYCATCH — STATUS OF THE OBSERVER PROGRAM The numbers of bycatch observations and data available from the spot prawn fishery are limited. Many variables affect both the amount and type of bycatch caught, particularly in trawl gear. These factors range from location, time of year, tow speed, tow duration, type and diameter of roller gear, mesh size, presence or absence of a fish-excluder device, and the type of excluder used (Reilly, CDFG. Pers. comm., June 2001). These factors, in combination with limited observation and analysis, have restricted the CDFG’s capacity to determine the nature and extent of bycatch issues in the fishery. As a result, the CDFG stated, in a memo to the California Fish and Game Commission, that a “more extensive observer program would be desirable if the funds were available” (CDFG 1999). The Commission approved the request for an observer program effective July 2000. As of late 2000, 21 trap vessels and 21 trawl vessels were participating in the program. To date, CDFG has collected observations from approximately 80 spot prawn trawl tows, representing fishing grounds off Fort Bragg and south to the northern Channel Islands off Point Conception. Data have also been gathered from about 200 trap strings, covering fishing grounds from Monterey south to San Diego, and including the islands off Southern California (Reilly, CDFG. Pers. comm., June 2001). California’s Observer Program is funded through an observer fee. Fees have been set as follows: •$250 for each trap vessel, $250 for any trawl vessel with spot prawn landings of less than 1,000 pounds in 1998 and 1999. •$500 for each vessel landing 1,000 pounds or The field of Ecological Economics “is not a single, new paradigm based in shared assumptions and theory” (Costanza et. al. 1997, p. 50). It is a transdisciplinary field that uses methods and information from economics, ecology, and other fields to address the difficult areas of development and environmental sustainability. The discipline works from the initial premise that the “earth has a limited capacity for sustainably supporting people and their artifacts determined by combinations of resource limits and ecological thresholds” (Costanza et al. 1997, p. 75). It places the human economic system as a subset of, and entirely dependent on, natural ecosystems. The relationship is explicit. Ecological Economics incorporates the strengths of traditional economics and includes additional ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS areas critical to development and natural resource management in the 21st century. There are four general categories of decisionmaking criteria: 1) economic scale, environmental impacts, and sustainability; 2) fair distribution of opportunity and benefits; 3) economic efficiency; and 4) democracy in governance. Traditional economics assumes that with economic growth, problems of sustainability, distribution, and efficiency will be solved. Issues of governance and democracy are believed to be beyond the scope of economics. Ecological Economics, on the other hand, does not assume that growth is a cure-all. Ecological sustainability, fairness, economic efficiency, and democratic decision-making processes must be part of the definition of success for any development project or management system, and must be directly integrated into plans and policy from the beginning. For example, the World Bank and private financiers have provided thousands of loans for shrimp aquaculture in developing nations.Yet neither the project plans nor the appraisal reports included the: loss in value associated with the reduction or destruction of ecological services such as water purification; declining coastal fisheries; compromised water quality; salinization of coastal farmland; or displacement of coastal communities.These loans are now recognized as having been profitable for shrimp farmers, but also responsible for creating much greater social costs overall. Some countries, like India, have banned shrimp farming nationwide. Fisheries management failures and resulting fisheries collapses can be directly attributed to the failure of traditional economic analysis to consider the negative externalities 44
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