The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report - Earth Economics

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The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report management system would be easy. Anyone and everyone could fish; fishing capacity and effort would not need to be constrained in any way. However, spots prawns, like all fisheries, do have clear biological limits, and recognition of these limits must be reflected in distribution and management regimes. A failure to limit the privilege or capacity to fish will result in overfishing, ecological collapse, and market failure. The market cannot detect the ecological limits of the fishery, which is why we need regulation. Determination of fair distribution systems is not a science. Distribution decisions are often guided by social wants, economic bottom lines, and cultural needs or ethics and values. All of these factors are difficult to balance and quantify in the decision-making equation. Nevertheless, the difficulty of making these decisions cannot be used to ignore things like biological limits or scientific uncertainty, thereby easing the challenge or diminishing the unpopularity of any decision that needs to be made. There many different ways in which fair distribution and democratic management can be achieved. Ultimately, the best system is one that reflects and grows out of the context—economic, social, ecological—within which a given fishery is rooted. The spot prawn fishery currently employs a range of options for distributing fishing privileges. These include open access, trip limits, limited entry, and gear restrictions, among others. In order for fair distribution and democracy to be attained in the spot prawn fishery’s regulation and management, the following should be considered: 2.1 Control Overcapitalization Systems to better control and manage overcapitalization and fishing effort should be instituted in all regions, and should be applied to both commercial and recreational fisheries. These systems should strive to be equitable so that benefits and costs are distributed as equitably and fairly as possible across fishery participants. Mechanisms that will allow effort to continue to be ratcheted down, if need be, should be part of the system. Controlling burgeoning effort is important for obvious ecological reasons. It is also important for economic reasons. Derby fisheries pose a problem for processors and the market. Flooding the market with product interferes with supply and demand systems, and may also affect the desirability of a particular product or source. Derbies tend to strain processing capacity, leading to wasted or inferior product. 2.2 Create a System of Economic Incentives Economic incentive systems play an important role in fair distribution and the development of democratic and efficient management. Incentivebased instruments are a fundamental component of sustainable management because they have the capacity to correct or prevent the type of market failures that often compromise the longterm viability of fisheries. Economic incentives can be used to: ensure that externalities are properly accounted for; overcome the “tragedy of the commons” by assisting in the equitable delineation of property rights; correct myopic time discounting; manage under conditions of uncertainty or incomplete information. Incentive-based systems can take any number of forms, and in order to be effective will ultimately need to consider the context and characteristics of the fishery to which they are being applied. The spot prawn fishery should consider the use of a green tax. A green tax would serve to ensure that resource flows from the environment to the economy are sustainable, while also creating incentives for fishers to develop fishing technologies, techniques, and processes that minimize the ecological impacts of fishing. Related to this, an incentive system should be developed that would reward the stewards of the spot prawn resource and ecologically sound fishing behaviors. Preferential quota allocation is an example of this type of incentive system that has been discussed at length in fishery management circles. Finally, in order for any incentive system to be effective, illegal fishing activity must be severely penalized. Monitoring and enforcement systems must be sophisticated and well-funded so that illegal fishing and “bad stewards” are not inadvertently rewarded. 2.3 Foster Collaboration and Cooperation in Decision-Making and Management Collaborative or cooperative natural resource management is an idea that has gained considerable currency in recent years. Collaborative management consists of formal or informal arrangements between individual or groups of fishers, other stakeholders, and the various levels of government responsible for the management and conservation of marine fisheries and the environment (Ostrom 1990, White et al. 1994). Cooperative man- 53
The Spot Prawn Fishery: A Status Report agement is grounded in a belief that management will be more effective, and ultimately sustainable, if all those with an interest in the resource participate in the development and implementation of natural resource management policy. Broadly participatory management systems allow different knowledge, experiences, and visions to be incorporated into decision-making. Local or traditional ecological knowledge can be tapped where scientific data are incomplete or scarce. The equitable and legitimate participation in decisionmaking and management ensures that individual and/or community commitment and belief in the given resource-management policies and systems are increased and enhanced. The incentive shifts from maximizing individual gains to maximizing communal returns. The accepted time scale for returns lengthens and fosters a greater recognition of the links between ecological systems and economic systems. The structure of the regime, and the nature and degree to which management responsibilities are evenly shared between players, are contextual. The dynamics and characteristics of an effective community-based system necessarily reflect the ecological, social, political, cultural, and economic conditions within which it is based. Cooperative or community-based management has the potential to: “promote conservation and enhancement of fish stocks; improve the quality of data and data analysis; THE MARINE STEWARDSHIP COUNCIL’S PRINCIPLES & CRITERIA FOR SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES population to produce longterm potential yields. The three Principles of the MSC Standard (See MSC 1998 for complete details) are the condition of the fish stock, the impact of the fishery on the marine environment, and the fishery management systems in place. These Principles are detailed below: PRINCIPLE 1 A fishery must be conducted in a manner that does not lead to overfishing or depletion of the exploited populations and, for those populations that are depleted, the fishery must be conducted in a manner that demonstrably leads to their recovery. Criteria: 1. The fishery shall be conducted at catch levels that continually maintain the high productivity of the target population(s) and associated ecological community relative to its potential productivity. 2. Where the exploited populations are depleted, the fishery will be executed such that recovery and rebuilding is allowed to occur to a specified level consistent with the precautionary approach and the ability of the populations to produce long-term potential yields within a specified time frame. 3. Fishing is conducted in a manner that does not alter the age or genetic structure or sex composition to a degree that impairs reproductive capacity. PRINCIPLE 2 Fishing operations should allow for the maintenance of the structure, productivity, function, and diversity of the ecosystem (including habitat and associated dependent and ecologically related species) on which the fishery depends. Criteria: 1. The fishery is conducted in a way that maintains natural functional relationships among species and should not lead to trophic cascades or ecosystem state changes. 2. The fishery is conducted in a manner that does not threaten biological diversity at the genetic, species, or population levels, and avoids or minimizes mortality of or injuries to endangered, threatened, or protected species. 3. Where exploited populations are depleted, the fishery will be executed such that recovery and rebuilding are allowed to occur to a specified level within specified time frames, consistent with the precautionary approach and considering the ability of the PRINCIPLE 3 The fishery is subject to an effective management system that respects local, national, and international laws and standards and incorporates institutional and operational frameworks that require use of the resource to be responsible and sustainable. Management System Criteria: 1. The fishery shall not be conducted under a controversial unilateral exemption to an international agreement. The management system shall: 2. demonstrate clear long-term objectives consistent with MSC Principles and Criteria and contain a consultative process that is transparent and involves all interested and affected parties so as to consider all relevant information, including local knowledge. The impact of fishery management decisions on all those who depend on the fishery for their livelihoods, including but not confined to subsistence, artisinal, and fishing-dependent communities, shall be addressed as part of this process; 3. be appropriate to the cultural context, scale, and intensity of the fishery—reflecting specific objectives, incorporating operational 54
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