Sharing the Fish Toward a National Policy on Individual Fishing Quotas (1999) / Chapter Skim
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3 U.S. and Foreign Experience: Lessons Learned
3 U.S. and Foreign Experience: Lessons Learned
Pages 59-111
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From page 59... ...
The full texts of the selected case studies and associated literature citations are presented in Appendix G IFQ programs reviewed by the committee are a subset of a larger set of management alternatives intended to restrict fishing participation or effort (see Chapter 4~.
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From page 60... ...
program approved under the act. Prior Regulatory Conditions in the Fishery Prior to ITQs, the SCOQ fishery was managed through a combination of size limits, annual and quarterly quotas, and in the case of surf clams, fishing time restrictions intended to spread out the catch and even out product input to processors.
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From page 61... ...
After that time when vessels were sold, mostly to their captains, unionization ended, and no association arose to represent the interests of captains and crews. However, both vessel owners and processors were very active in the management process, and several organizations appeared from time to time to help galvanize efforts to cooperate with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC)
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From page 62... ...
In concert with other fishery regulations, it reduced the overharvest of surf clams and fostered development of the ocean quahog fishery. The regulatory system under the moratorium, however, was cumbersome and costly to enforce.
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The Initial Allocation of Quota Shares. The initial allocation of quota shares was to owners of permitted vessels that harvested surf clams or ocean quahogs between January 1, 1970, and December 31, 1988.
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From page 64... ...
Natural growth of major year classes of clams and greater targeting of fishing effort subsequent to ITQ implementation led the MAFMC to suspend the minimum size limit on surf clams. The number of vessels active in the surf clam fishery in federal waters went from 128 in 1990, at the initiation of the ITQ program, to 33 in 1997, a 74% reduction.
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Many quota share recipients ceased fishing and leased their quota shares to other firms. Ownership became increasingly concentrated for ocean quahogs but did not change significantly for surf clams.
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The number of participants is small (<50) , and the fishery was put under an IFQ program within five years of its inception.
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Some economic analysis has been done on the fishery and individual fishing operation characteristics, but no sociological analysis has been conducted. The relatively small number of participants in the wreckfish fishery come from a large and widely dispersed number of fisheries and communities throughout the South Atlantic region (primarily Florida to North Carolina)
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From page 68... ...
Initial Allocation of Quota Shares. Eligibility to receive initial ITQ shares was restricted to permitters who landed more than 5,000 pounds of wreckfish in either 1989 or 1990.
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From page 69... ...
, and much easier to administer, enforce, and monitor than the fishery management system in place prior to the ITQ program. The Magnuson-Stevens Act mandates the recovery of up to 3% of the costs for the administration and enforcement of IFQ programs, but NMFS and the SAFMC have not yet begun planning a cost recovery system for wreckfish.
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With passage of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act, limited entry and allocation decisions for U.S. waters were delegated to the North Pacific and Pacific Fishery Management Councils.
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Halibut and sablefish have accounted, respectively, for 5% and 4% of the exvessel value of commercial catches off Alaska and are regionally significant (see Figure G.10~. Problems and Issues That Led to Consideration of an IFQ Program The problems and issues that led to consideration of an IFQ program were allocation conflicts, gear conflicts, ghost fishing due to lost gear, bycatch loss in other fisheries, discard mortality, excess harvesting capacity, product quality as reflected in low real prices, safety, economic stability in the fishery and commu
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Objectives of the IFQ Program The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) defined the purpose of and need for action in the sablefish fishery (NPFMC, 1991a)
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The allocation of quota shares included an adjustment for implementation of the Community Development Quota program in the western Bering Sea region. An extensive review and appeals function accompanied the initial allocation of quota share.
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Division was created to oversee the initial allocation of quota shares, approve transfers, and monitor compliance. There were no special taxes or fees to cover the cost of developing and administering the IFQ programs before their inception to the present.
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From page 75... ...
and demand. The effect of the IFQ programs on halibut exvessel price and on costs and revenues for processors, communities, and consumers are even less well understood.
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Currently, the increased costs of managing and enforcing the IFQ programs are not being recovered from the quota shareholders. However, a cost recovery program is being developed that will assess up to 3% of the exvessel value, which compares favorably with the budget of the RAM Division (see Appendix H)
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From page 77... ...
The characteristics of the U.S. IFQ programs are summarized in Table 3.1.
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78 Cq · _4 Cq .~ .> a' a' be Cq Cq .~ .
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80 .= ¢ Em Ct V, be o' o v V, so be o o o b° · 1 Ct ~ o o o o o o U)
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Finally, it was argued that an IFQ program would solve other perennial problems, including the problem of safety at sea and the burden of administration.
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ITQ Management Units. Quota shares are expressed as a percentage of the TAC in metric tons.
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Its role is to issue fishing permits and quota shares, to record information about catches and landings, and to ensure that rules about weighing and landings are followed. Employees of this agency occasionally monitor fishing operations and take samples of landings.
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From page 84... ...
Since the collapse of Icelandic herring stocks in the late 1960s, management of the herring stock has been very successful. Catches have increased gradually, from less than 20,000 metric tons in 1975 to about 140,000 metric tons in the 1994-1995 season, but they fell in the 1996-1997 season to about 100,000 metric tons.
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From page 85... ...
ITQs in the herring fishery have led to a substantial increase in economic efficiency. The number of vessels participating in the herring fishery decreased drastically from more than 200 vessels in 1980 to 29 vessels in 1996, at the same time the total catch increased (from 53,000 metric tons in 1980 to approximately 140,000 metric tons in 1994-1995~.
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From page 86... ...
ITQs remain, according to the first clause of the 1990 fisheries management legislation, the "public property of the nation." The laws that eventually were passed reinforced such a conclusion by stating categorically that the aim of the authorities was not to establish private ownership. The issue of ownership, however, is still contested, and quota shares are gradually acquiring the characteristics of private property, despite legal clauses to the contrary.
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From page 87... ...
This system of limited entry failed to control the increase in effort and investment in these fisheries. Subsequently, the Fisheries Act 1983 was passed, replacing legislation dating from 1908.
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From page 88... ...
In 1986, the government passed an amendment to the Fisheries Act 1983 that allowed for the introduction of an ITQ program in the inshore fishery and for its broader application to the deepwater fishery. Prior Biological and Ecological Conditions in the Fishery Prior to the introduction of ITQs in 1986, there was a widespread perception within government and industry (based primarily on falling catch rates because few quantitative stock assessments existed at that stage)
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From page 89... ...
to the industry; To allocate catch entitlement equitably based on fishermen' s commitment · To manage the fishery so that fishermen would retain maximum security of access to fish and flexibility of harvesting; · To integrate the ITQ programs of the inshore and deepwater fisheries; · To develop a management framework that could be administered regionally in each fishery management area; · To assist the harvesting sector financially to restructure its operations to achieve the above aims; and . To enhance the recreational fishery.
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From page 90... ...
Where the sum of the initial allocation was less than the initial TAC, the balance was allocated by tender. Accumulation and Transfer of Quota Shares.
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From page 91... ...
Quota busting is known to occur in some fisheries, especially those for highvalue species such as rock lobster, paua, snapper, and orange roughy. The illegal catch of rock lobsters in 1993 was estimated as 715 metric tons, about 25% of the total rock lobster TAC (Annala, 1994~.
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From page 92... ...
The major biological and ecological outcomes of New Zealand's ITQ program include improved biological status of fish stocks and development of an open and transparent stock assessment and TAC-setting process. Of the 179 Fishstocks in the QMS as of October 1, 1997, 30 were created for administrative purposes around an offshore island group that is only lightly fished for a few species.
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From page 93... ...
It provided a complete revision of the Fisheries Act, building on the strengths of the QMS, refined some aspects of the QMS, and added other fishery management features. The act has the following principal components that address many of the current issues with regard to the ITQ program.
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The transition from traditional management to IFQ management 11 The committee reviewed the four U.S. IFQ programs, plus the IFQ programs of Iceland and New Zealand.
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IFQ programs have sometimes been considered for situations in which administration or enforcement of an existing system was costly or difficult under traditional management mechanisms (e.g., surf clams/ocean quahogs)
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The processes through which existing IFQ programs have been developed vary widely worldwide. Some have been essentially "top down," with scientists and managers initiating the process and making
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From page 97... ...
Nature and Duration of the IFQ Most of the existing IFQ programs define the legal status of an IFQ as a "revocable privilege," not a permanent enfranchisement. The quota management program in New Zealand, however, is a prominent exception, granting rights in perpetuity.
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From page 98... ...
The New Zealand program is a notable exception, in which the attributable and avoidable costs are fully recovered from quota holders. As noted above, most programs essentially give the originally issued TABLE 3.2 Enforcement Actions in Relation to the Alaskan Halibut and Sablefish IFQ Programs Year# IFQ CasesOverages > 10% Other 199490 9 1995601436 165 1996453302 151 1997294179 115 SOURCES: 1994-1996: Matthews (1997)
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The U.S. IFQ programs now have the mandate to recover up to 3% of exvessel landings value of IFQ fisheries for administrative and enforcement costs and 0.5% of quota value at transfer for the limited access registry system, but none have implemented cost recovery activities yet.
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From page 101... ...
· Decreases in total harvest-sector employment have been documented in some IFQ fisheries, primarily as a result of decreased numbers of vessels participating and secondarily as a result of less intensive demand for labor compared to "derby" fisheries. However, the length of employment has increased for those who remain employed in some fisheries (e.g., in the Canadian Pacific groundfish fisheries: Bruce Turris, presentation to the committee)
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From page 102... ...
102 300 250 (n Q 200 ·1 o Q z 100 50 O SHARING THE FISH: TOWARD A NATIONAL POLICY ON IFQs · No. boats · Capacity cat LO oo oo oo oo Year ~ 1 500 1 000 500 -O _` (n .~ o .~ s ct5 o Q In Ct ~ Ct n o s FIGURE 3.2 Number of license purse seiners and total fleet capacity in Norway.
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From page 103... ...
103 has shifted in many IFQ-managed fisheries. This is usually attributed both to the generation and ownership of new economic value reflected in IFQs and to the fact that ownership of originally issued IFQs is generally concentrated among vessel owners, rather than the crew or processing sectors.
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From page 104... ...
· Several of the programs reviewed showed clear evidence of the aggregation of IFQs subsequent to the initiation of the program (e.g., surf clams, ocean quahogs)
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These actual or potential effects may achieve or conflict with the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and other applicable law. · The success of IFQ programs in fulfilling their objectives depends on other provisions of the fishing policy and management program.
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From page 106... ...
Excess harvesting capacity is a fundamental problem with respect to conservation of fishery resources, and biological conservation is an expressed objective of most IFQ programs. Insofar as an IFQ program contributes to reduction in harvest capacity such that directed effort and catches (fishing mortalities)
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From page 107... ...
. IFQ programs have been effective in eliminating the derby nature of fisheries to which they have been applied, thereby decreasing directed effort, stabilizing the supply of fish, and decreasing the potential for quota overruns attributable to the difficulty of monitoring catches during short, frantic fishing seasons.
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From page 108... ...
. Empirical evidence from the Alaskan halibut and sablefish fisheries following implementation of the IFQ program indicates that highgrading is not significant in these fisheries (Gilroy et al., 1996; see Appendix G)
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From page 109... ...
Fisheries in which highgrading is not a serious problem seem to be characterized by minimal price differentials among fish sizes and/or relatively high costs of catching replacement fish (Squires et al., 1995~. Discarding of small and immature fish during fishing operations and
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From page 110... ...
For example, IFQ programs can affect stock assessments due to changes in fishing behavior (Squires et al., 1995~. Shifts in fishing location or seasonal patterns may alter catch rates and indices of stock abundance derived from CPUE; there may be changes in the selectivity for different sizes of fish that alter the maximum sustainable yield and the target rates of exploitation on which the TACs are based.
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From page 111... ...
The following chapter discusses the range of fishery management measures that have been used to try to sustain marine fisheries.
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