2 results

Dynamic modelling of socio-economic benefits of resource allocation between commercial and recreational use

Project number: 2003-039
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $154,200.00
Principal Investigator: John Nicholls
Organisation: Data Analysis Australia (DAA)
Project start/end date: 29 Jun 2003 - 8 Sep 2006
:
TAGS
Recreational Fishing
Modelling
Fishing Effort
Economic

Need

Fisheries management (and stakeholders) at both State and national level do not have a well defined and documented framework and tested tool that is capable of modeling the way that changes in key variables impact on commercial and recreational relative use values over time and how this in turn affects socially optimum allocations through time. As a consequence,fisheries management is not well placed to be confident that decisions taken today are consistent with long term socially optimal outcomes.

In looking for a framework and set of tools to evaluate resource allocation options and to measure socially optimal allocations for the purposes of satisfying legislative, including ESD, objectives, decision makers have expressed a need for:
(1) a more general dynamic framework to look at optimal resource allocation through time .
(2) a socio-economic analytical framework with a consistent methodology and additional set of tested tools that explicitly take into account variables impacting on the optimization of socio-economic benefits from commercial and recreational uses through time;
(3) practical guidance in the application of the dynamic framework and advanced methodologies to address inter-sectoral related resource-sharing issues over time; and
(4) additional supporting methodologies and tools for WA Fisheries Department (and other fisheries Agencies throughout Australia) to use in the development of an integrated coastal fisheries management initiative that will provide a consistent framework for socio-economic analysis in addressing inter-sectoral resource allocation options over time.

Objectives

1. The development of a general framework that provides a theoretical basis for identifying key variables that impact on commercial and recreational use values over time
2. The documentation of a robust dynamic model capturing the significant variables that impact on these values over time and how these impact on socially optimum resource allocation through time and which allow simulations of the optimal resource allocations over time.
3. The demonstration of the application of the dynamic framework and model through three case studies associated with the current FRDC supported socio-economic valuation project (2001/065). This will advance the outputs from project 2001/065 in a logical, consistent and stepwise way

Final report

ISBN: 0-9756020-3-9
Author: John Nicholls
Final Report • 2006-10-17 • 1.53 MB
2003-039-DLD.pdf

Summary

Fisheries-related resources are finite and the need to share these resources among competing uses is inevitable. These resource sharing issues can be extremely contentious, politically difficult, and are often a significant drain on fisheries management agencies’ and stakeholders’ limited resources. Hence, there needs to be a consistently sound and rational basis for assessing these allocation issues that is widely understood and generally acceptable as fair and reasonable.
 
Socio-economic valuation tools are recognized as a key component of ecological sustainable development (ESD) assessments of our natural resources. Recent projects, including two previous FRDC-sponsored projects, describe both the appropriateness of such analyses and the need for their use.
 
The research in this project presents a dynamic model based on economic principles that can be used to evaluate the likely future direction of the socially optimal inter-sectoral resource allocations over time. The research illustrates the application of the model in three Western Australian case study fisheries. These case studies illustrate the nature of the data used to implement the model, the method of analyzing that data and the determination of the optimal allocation path over time using these data and relationships.

Socio-economic valuation of allocation options between recreational and commercial sectors

Project number: 2001-065
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $298,186.00
Principal Investigator: John Nicholls
Organisation: Data Analysis Australia (DAA)
Project start/end date: 24 Jul 2001 - 30 Aug 2004
:
TAGS
Wild Catch
Tagging
Survey
Stock Assessment
Resource Sharing

Need

This project will fulfill substantive and practical needs at both state and national levels:

1) Using existing socio-economic methodologies, the project will provide decision-makers with the results of socio-economic analyses of the benefits and costs of redistributing specific fisheries resources. Thus, the project will help to resolve potentially conflict-ridden allocation decisions by extending the State’s use of a consistent decision-making framework based on socio-economic information.

2) Using socio-economic analysis, the project will advance a consistent methodology and set of tools for rational and defensible fisheries management decisions.

3) By providing supporting information for Fisheries WA’s use of integrated coastal fisheries management (ICFM), the project will help to ensure the ESD of WA’s fisheries resources.

4) By virtue of (i) the types of case studies chosen and (ii) the use of recognized economic evaluation tools, the project will provide substantive guidance for other fisheries management agencies facing similar inter-sectoral ESD-related issues.

Objectives

1. The benefit-cost analyses of fisheries facing intra- and inter-sectoral allocation issues will generate socio-economic data regarding the potential benefits and costs associated with reallocating within and amongst different stakeholder groups in several types of fisheries.
2. Specifically, the particular case studies will provide explicit assessments of the potential benefits and costs of reallocations in three fisheries. These particular fisheries are representative of ESD-related allocation issues in many of Australia’s fisheries:(i.) intersectoral allocation: the Cockburn Sound Crab fishery - a localized crab fishery in an area of increasing coastal residential and industrial development
(ii.) inter- and intra-sectoral allocation: the Perth Metropolitan abalone fishery - an abalone fishery in which the rapidly expanding recreational sector is quite spatially discrete from the commercial sector but harvests the same stocks
(iii.) inter- and intra-sectoral allocation: the ‘finfish’ fishery, including snapper and dhufish - a multispecies finfish fishery that is both used by commercial fishers as (i) part of a diversified portfolio and, increasingly, as (ii) a directed target fishery and used by recreational fishers as a directed species fishery of growing importance.

Final report

Author: John Nicholls
Final Report • 2004-10-21 • 2.56 MB
2001-065-DLD.pdf

Summary

Because sustainable use of fisheries-related resources is finite, the sharing or allocation of these resources is inevitable. It is also clear that allocation decisions can be enormously contentious amongst different stakeholder groups, may be politically difficult, and are typically a significant drain on fisheries management agencies’ and stakeholder interests’ limited resources. Nonetheless, fisheries management agencies have an obligation to the public to understand impacts of allocating-and reallocating-fisheries resources so that the balancing act and the trade-offs that characterize fisheries management resource allocation decisions are more defensible and the Agencies and stakeholder interests are better placed to address the socio-economic outcomes within the decision making framework.

The research in this project is to present a benefit cost framework based on economic principles for evaluating resource allocation options, and, then, to apply the socio-economic valuation methodologies and techniques in three Western Australian case study fisheries. This is to test the robustness of the information derived from such analysis to aid the resolution of resource sharing issues between commercial and recreational stakeholders. The techniques used will be applicable elsewhere and the results, although specific to the three case study fisheries, will provide guidance for other State fisheries management agencies that inevitably face similar allocation situations.

This research provides further methodological development and empirical data by case studies extending the value of other FRDC-sponsored research regarding sector-specific socio-economic valuation (Hundloe, et al), and inter-sectoral equity issues relating to ESD.

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