16 results

Tactical Research Fund: Empowering Industry RD&E Assisting fishing businesses adjust to implementation of quota control management in their fishery

Project number: 2010-229
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $75,000.00
Principal Investigator: Sevaly Sen
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 6 May 2011 - 30 Jan 2012
Contact:
FRDC

Need

There has been much written on the theoretical merits and practical implementation of ITQs from a regulators/managers perspective(eg. Kaufman et al. 1999), but virtually nothing has been published specifically directed at fishers to help them understand what the implementation of ITQs means to their fishery and importantly, how their businesses can operate under ITQs and adjust to remain healthy and profitable.

The few "guides" that are available, such as as "The Fishermen’s Guide to the Quota Management System" (Boyle 1993) explain the technical compliance and management requirements for New Zealand fisheries and others such as Fisheries Management Paper No 138 (Donohue and Barker, 2000) review information and potential pros and cons of quota management. None, however are targetted at, and written for small and medium sized fishery businesses and nor do they explain how these business can adapt and thrive under ITQ management.

It is well known that fishers can take a significant amount of time to accept the move to ITQs and then even longer to operate efficiently and effectively within this management environment. The WA rock lobster fishery and the Commonwealth's northern prawn fishery are two of Australia's most valuable fisheries, both of which are currently in the throes of moving to ITQ management. A number of fisheries in the Northern Territory are also moving to ITQs. In many cases, industry members are resistant to this change and are very concerned about how their businesses need to change under such a management regime.

What is needed is an easy to use comprehensive guide to understanding ITQ management which includes information and guidance on how to best adjust and adapt their businesses to operate efficiently and profitably. This project offers to produce such a guide.

Objectives

1. Interview a range of fishers from fisheries that are moving to ITQ management, to understand their areas of concern and what information they would require to better adapt their businesses to operate efficiently and profitably under ITQ management
2. Produce a comprehensive but easy-to-read guide targeted particularly for use by fishers on "Understanding and adapting fishing businesses to ITQ management".
3. Examine and document the unintended consequences of ITQ implementation.

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9872184-2-1
Author: Sevaly Sen

Project products

Guide • 2012-06-30 • 4.19 MB
2010-229-Hunter-to-Harvester-Guide.pdf

Summary

The purpose of this handbook is to help you, as an operator in a fishery going to or recently moved to quota, to navigate your way through the business decisions regarding Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), and to help you adjust your business to the new system.
 
This guide does not discuss the pros and cons of ITQs or the different quota allocation methods, as it is assumed that these discussions will have already taken place. If you are interested in these issues, there are many publications on the subject – a list of some is attached at the end of this guide.

Improving the cost effectiveness of displaced fishing effort adjustment programmes using ex post socio-economic impact analysis

Project number: 2010-038
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $93,575.84
Principal Investigator: Sevaly Sen
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 19 Jun 2010 - 29 Jun 2011
Contact:
FRDC

Need

As with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Protected Area and the South-east Marine Bio-regional plan, future social and economic impact assessments of Commonwealth and State declared MPAs/marine reserves are likely to contribute to the estimated quantum and distribution of adjustment assistance for displaced fishing effort.

However, previous experiences of adjustment assistance for displaced effort have never been evaluated as to whether these schemes alleviated the impacts on communities and fishers most affected or whether the assistance provided was used by recipients for what it was intended.

Evaluating these impacts will better inform and shape the intensive marine bioregional planning process over the next two years.

An optimised displaced effort adjustment program should result in:

1. potentially reduced expenditure due to better-targetted assistance
2. faster planning processes for future MPAs.
3. reduced administrative burdens due to lower levels of complaints and challenge.

Objectives

1. To assess the social and economic impact of the GBR Structural Adjustment Package on displaced effort
2. To identify improvements in current approaches to financial assistance for future displaced effort assistance programmes
3. To provide information which can be used to refine future social and economic ex ante assessments for MPAs

Final report

ISBN: 978-0-9872184-0-7
Author: Sevaly Sen

BCA: Development of an automated oyster grader

Project number: 1999-421.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $6,050.00
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 2 Oct 2004 - 14 Dec 2004
Contact:
FRDC
SPECIES

Need

Commercial in confidence. To know more about this project please contact FRDC.

Objectives

Commercial in confidence

BCA: Research to develop and manage the sea urchin fisheries of NSW and eastern Victoria

Project number: 1999-128.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $6,050.00
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 2 Oct 2004 - 14 Dec 2004
Contact:
FRDC

Need

With the decline in several other sea urchin fisheries around the world, there now exists a good opportunity to develop a large and valuable fishery for purple and red sea urchins in NSW. In addition, there is also interest in the further development of the purple urchin fishery near Mallacoota in eastern Victoria, and the white urchin fishery in Port Phillip Bay. This interest is evidenced in both NSW and Victoria by substantial capital investment in factories to process sea urchins and their roe. If these urchin fisheries could be further developed within an appropriate management framework, it could also lead to significant benefits for the abalone fishery, particularly in NSW, because of the interaction between the two species.

Because of the limited development of this fishery to date, it provides an ideal opportunity to assess stocks of sea urchins prior to any major depletion by fishing. Sampling techniques have already been developed for sea urchins in barren habitats, and could easily be transferred to habitats where commercial fishing will be concentrated. Such assessments may be particularly important considering the evidence from other urchin fisheries, where large virgin stocks have been rapidly depleted with only low rates of recovery from the recruitment of juveniles.

Preliminary information from NSW suggests a large proportion of the sea urchin population does not contain high quality roe. Unless high quality roe can be reliably collected, the costs of processing sea urchins may restrict development of the fishery. Two main techniques have been used in other fisheries to improve the supply of food to sea urchins on reefs, and hence the quality of roe that can be harvested. If these techniques could be adapted for sea urchins in NSW, significant improvements in yield and value would be possible. Further, as the simple, large scale removals are already being used in the industry, there is also a need to detect their impacts on other species.

Objectives

1. Develop and complete a process for stock assessment of sea urchins in NSW and eastern Victoria
2. Investigate techniques to enable the reliable harvesting of quality roe from coastal reefs, and determine their impact on associated species

Final report

BCA: Spatial and seasonal stock dynamics of northern tiger prawns using fine-scale commercial catch-effort data

Project number: 1999-100.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $4,107.00
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 2 Oct 2004 - 16 Dec 2004
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The current assessment of the Northern tiger prawn fishery is based upon a separate analysis of the fishery for each of the two species (Wang & Die, 1996). An alternative stock modelling approach, which considered both species together (Haddon, 1997, 1998), supports the results of the first method but is somewhat more pessimistic. This alternative model provides an independent view of the status of the tiger prawn stocks and the uncertainties affecting the analysis are also different. That both approaches produce a similar conclusion (that the stocks appear to be vulnerable and fishing mortality is currently too high to be sustainable in the long term), increases confidence in the conclusion that there are serious problems with the fishery.

A weakness of the alternative model is that it is based upon commercial catch-effort data summarized over the statistical reporting areas and for each year. It is likely that this aggregation of catch and effort data is obscuring or biasing details of the stock dynamics. If the seasonal fishing behaviour of the trawl fleet, in terms of its use of the fishing grounds, has altered either in a steady manner or over shorter periods, this could have large implications for the real status of the tiger prawn stock which may have been obscured by the aggregation of the commercial catch-effort data. This may lead to the stock appearing to be more stressed than it is in reality. To test whether the alternative model is overly pessimistic, and to refine the analysis of stock dynamics, it would be necessary, using the same approaches as in the earlier model, to investigate stock and fleet dynamics at finer spatial and temporal scales.

The proposed modelling should reduce uncertainty over the present status of the tiger prawn stocks.

Objectives

1. Determine whether the spatial and temporal scales of fleet behaviour bias the interpretation of the tiger prawn stock dynamics when analyzed by a non-equilibrium stock-production model.
2. Prepare NPFAG Working Papers which will include full descriptions of the model structure, data analyses, and potential management implications.
3. Communicate to the Northern Prawn Fleet and Industry the results of the analyses in a format such that the implications become clear to everyone and that permits comments and criticisms by Industry members.

BCA - Aquaculture Diet Development Subprogram: feed development for atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

Project number: 1998-322.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $5,445.45
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 8 Sep 2003 - 13 Oct 2003
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Farming Atlantic salmon is Australia's most internationally competitive and sophisticated sustainable finfish aquaculture. The product has an international reputation for quality and this, in part, reflects the feeds used on salmon farms. Thus, major importance is attached to the availability of economic high quality salmon feeds. In other countries producing salmonids considerable public and commercial financial resources are directed into salmonid nutrition research. This means that advances are continually being made in our understanding of salmonid nutrition and feed design. However, this information is not directly applicable to salmon farmed in Australia nor is it always available in the public domain and it is therefore extremely important that Australia maintains its own capability for research on Atlantic salmon. The psalmon and trout. The research is needed because:-
1. Environmental conditions are very different in Australia compared with other areas in the world where salmon are farmed and research is conducted and therefore nutritional requirements and feed utilisation will also differ;
2. Ingredients that are available to European feed manufacturers are not readily or cheaply available in Australia and therefore a considerable amount of research is not relevant to the design of salmon feeds for Australian conditions;
3. Ingredients that are available in Australia and have great potential to be used in salmon feeds are not (yet) of interest to feed manufacturers outside Australia and therefore research needs to be conducted on these;
4. The availability and cost of fish meal will increasingly be a major restriction to producing economic high quality salmon feeds.

Objectives

1. Expand the data base for feed intake, digestibility and utilisation of key nutrients and feed ingredients (principally protein and fat sources) to ensure the optimum balance is used to formulate Atlantic salmon feeds.
2. Determine the lowest level of fish meal that can be used by combining alternative protein sources and to investigate the factors limiting inclusion of the most promising of these combinations.
3. Determine whether at low fish meal inclusions salmon performance is equivalent or better than high fish meal diets
4. To use the research results to formulate feeds for testing under commercial type conditions
5. To successfully transfer these results to ingredient producers, feed manufacturers , salmon and trout farmers and the scientific community.

BCA: Risk analysis and sustainability indicators for prawn stocks in the Northern Prawn Fishery

Project number: 1998-109.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $4,107.00
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 2 Oct 2004 - 16 Dec 2004
Contact:
FRDC

Need

To assess whether the ESD and MEE objectives are met there is a need to determine the status of prawns stocks in the NPF and to develop guidelines to define whether the present status of the stocks may require management actions. It is important to precisely define what population parameters should be monitored and what biological reference points should these parameters be compared in order to determine whether management action is required. The Northern Prawn Fishery Assessment Group (NPFAG) has identified that spawning stock biomass and standardised fishing effort are the two most important indicators for target stocks in the NPF. The NPFAG has also established that targets and limits for these indicators need to be set and reassessed as new information is collected. The NPFAG has also recommended that future advice provided to them by researchers should include an explicit measurement of the probabilities that each of these targets may be exceeded. Calculation of such probabilities requires formal risk analysis to be carried out as part of the stock assessment.

Additionally, there are a number of future management options that have been recently considered by NORMAC. These include reductions of pool of the licensing units used in the NPF, (A-units, representing vessel length and engine power), gear restrictions as well as further seasonal and spatial closures. Although the operational implications of adopting some of these options have been the subject of NORMAC discussions, the scientific evaluation of options is not carried out in a structured framework but rather as individual assessments as different options are proposed by NORMAC. There is a need to establish a structured framework for management strategy evaluation so that the NPFAG and NORMAC can compare different options in a consistent way. This framework for management strategy evaluation should allow for the integration of risk analysis into the evaluation of management options. The consequences of each management strategy should be quantified and evaluated against the indicator of performance established by the NPFAG. The evaluation should include the estimation of the probability that, in the future, certain undesirable or desirable states of the stock are reached.

Objectives

1. To assess the probability that current NPF prawn stocks are being fished at sustainable levels (as defined by performance indicators of stock status developed by NORMAC) by carrying out a risk analysis.
2. To predict the performance of future NPF management alternatives by comparing predicted stock parameters against NORMAC’s performance indicators of stock status.

A Practical Guide to ITQs for Fishery Managers and the Fishing Industry

Project number: 1997-144
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $125,877.00
Principal Investigator: Gerry Geen
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 30 Dec 1997 - 31 Mar 2000
Contact:
FRDC

Need

Significant problems have emerged in the design and implementation of ITQ systems both in Australia and worldwide. For example, although ITQs were introduced more than five years ago in the South East Fishery (SEF) there is continuing dissatisfaction with the scheme. A recent review by the South East Fishery Adjustment Working Group (1996) pointed out that 'the implementation process from boat units to Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) was appallingly handled ...'; and that 'since 1992 there have been at least eight internal or public reviews into various aspects of the SEF, as well as several litigation and AAT decisions'.

Similar difficulties with the implementation of ITQs have been experienced in state managed fisheries. A current example is the proposed introduction of ITQs in the Tasmanian crayfish fishery. This proposal has met with significant industry resistance which has resulted in the announcement of a review by the Tasmanian Legislative Council Select Committee. Overseas fisheries have suffered similar problems. For example, the ITQ system introduced into the Canadian halibut fishery has been sucessfully challenged in court with respect to the approach taken to allocation.

A number of the problems experienced to date, such as ineffective and costly monitoring, discarding and dissatisfaction with allocations can be related to the improper design and implementation of ITQ systems as opposed to difficulties intrinsic to ITQs.

Despite the above mentioned difficulties in implementing and operating ITQ systems, there is a strong and growing focus on the use of these management instruments. If implementation mistakes of the past are not to be repeated, a compilation of the practical experiences of ITQs and analysis of the operational difficulties experienced would be useful. What is needed is a non-theoretical, easily understood, operational guide to ITQs.

References

South East Fishery Adjustment Working Group (1996), 'Report to the Minister of Resources and Energy of the South East Fishery Adjustment Working Group', Canberra.

Objectives

1. Compilation of operational ITQ experiences in Australia and selected other countries
2. Analysis of the practical difficulties faced in the implementation and operation of ITQs
3. Develop guidelines to assist fishery managers and industry in the implementation of ITQ systems

Final report

Authors: Barry Kaufmann Gerry Geen and Sevaly Sen
Final Report • 2000-01-10 • 117.28 KB
1997-144-DLD.pdf

Summary

Dissatisfaction with the results of input control based management has led to an increasing worldwide interest in the use of output controls, such as individual transferable quotas (FTQs). Individual transferable quotas involve setting a total allowable catch (TAC) for a given fish stock and allocating a share of the TAC to each of the various participants within the fishery. However, significant problems have emerged in the design and implementation of ITQ systems.

Given the strong and growing focus on ITQs as an alternative to effort controls, prevention of the FTQ implementation mistakes of the past is therefore extremely important. This project was designed to address this need by reviewing the practical experiences of FTQs, analysing the operational difficulties encountered when implementing ITQs and compiling a non-theoretical, easily understood operational guide to ITQs targeted at those directly involved in implementing ITQ regimes: fishery managers and the fishing industry.

The methods used to carry out the research included a review of Australian and international literature on ITQ implementation, semi-stmctured interviews with fishery managers in AFMA and state fisheries management agencies, discussions with industry on their experiences with ITQs, active participation in the process of introducing ITQs and information gathering from fisheries managers and economists working in Canada, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and the United States.

 

 

Project products

Book • 1999-01-01 • 802.49 KB
1997-144 Fish Futures Individual Transferable Quotas in Fisheries.pdf

Summary

This book is aimed at providing reference material for persons interested in exploring how an ITQ system might work in practice. The target audience is fishery managers, industry and others involved in day-to-day fisheries management. The main purpose is to describe ITQ implementation options and provide, where possible, examples of how effective these options have been in various fisheries jurisdictions. The aim is not to identify and prescribe the most effective approaches to quota allocation, compliance or other operational matters, but rather to identify the ways that these issues have been tackled by various fisheries management agencies. Numerous references are provided in order to allow the interested reader to follow up on various topics.

In attempting to deal with a subject as broad as ITQ implementation, it is inevitable that certain topics are covered less thoroughly than others, and some barely at all. The choices of where to focus our attention have been largely driven by our experience of which issues cause problems to fishery managers and industry when designing and implementing ITQ systems. In highly technical areas, such as the chapters on Property Rights, Quota Allocation and TAC Setting, we have drawn on the knowledge of experts in the respective fields of law (Jane Knowler, Associate Lecturer in Law at Flinders University) and stock assessment (Andre Punt, Senior Resource Modeller in the CSIRO Division of Marine Research) to help us. However, we have attempted to keep the discussion fairly user-friendly so that anyone interested in the subject areas should be able to understand and digest the information.

BCA - Ecologically sustainable development of the fishery for Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) around Macquarie Island: population parameters, population assessment and ecological interactions

Project number: 1997-122.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $5,445.45
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 8 Sep 2003 - 30 Jun 2004
Contact:
FRDC

Need

The Patagonian toothfish fishery is expanding worldwide and it may play a pivotal role in the development of an Australian fishing industry in the Southern Ocean. The recommended TAC for toothfish in other Southern Ocean regions was revised upwards by the 1996 CCAMLR scientific committee. For example, in the CCAMLR area 58.5.2 (primarily the AFZ around Heard and McDonald Islands) a TAC of 3800 metric tonnes of toothfish was set. As a result considerable national and international interest in the fishery is expected.

Given the conservation value of Macquarie Island it is expected that operation of the fishery will be closely scrutinised -- the scrutiny is already clear at the national ( MACSAG, AFMA, DPIE and conservation groups) level. Development of the Macquarie Island fishery provides a great opportunity as a demonstration project to illustrate that fishery development can be achieved while protecting conservation values -- a demonstration of Ecologically Sustainable Development in action. Furthermore, much of what will be learnt will also be relevant to the emerging Heard Island toothfish fishery.

To date little research has been done to establish the basic biological parameters of the toothfish necessary to develop sound management policies. As recognised by both the Macquarie Island Fish Stock Assessment Group and the Sub-Antarctic Ecosystem Assessment Group there is a real need to develop a comprehensive program of research which not only addresses basic biological parameters such as age and stock structure, but also examines the distribution and abundance of this species so that effective management of the fishery can proceed. As the Macquarie Island area is likely to be sensitive to possible ecosystem changes brought about by a developing fishery, there is also a need to understand where toothfish 'fit into' the broader offshore Macquarie Island ecosystem, and likely ecosystem effects.

Objectives

1. Determine the key population parameters (age validation, growth, age of maturity, mortality of fished cohorts, and population structure after age validation), distribution, movements and relative abundance of the Patagonian toothfish around Macquarie Island.
2. Assess the usefulness of DNA micro satellite markers for determining stock structure.
3. Assess the biological and physical oceanographic effects on catch rates, toothfish availability, and interactions between the fishery and non-target species.
4. Assess the magnitude and composition of the fishery bycatch, and identify the food chain linkages between the fishery, the toothfish, the main bird and mammal species.
5. Develop population models for the Patagonian toothfish fishery and provide strategies for developing and managing the fishery.

BCA - Effects of Trawling Subprogram: commercialisation of bycatch reduction strategies and devices in northern Australian prawn trawl fisheries

Project number: 1996-254.80
Project Status:
Completed
Budget expenditure: $5,448.18
Principal Investigator: Tony Kingston
Organisation: Fisheries Economics Research and Management Specialists (FERM)
Project start/end date: 8 Sep 2003 - 30 Jun 2004
Contact:
FRDC

Objectives

1. Inform and consult commercial trawl fishers about ways and means of reducing the catch of non-target organisms in their trawl nets.
2. Further develop promising by-catch reduction devices and other by-catch reduction strategies under commercial conditions.
3. Document, accumulate and publish performance data of turtle excluder devices and by-catch reduction gears suitable for the commercial fishing industry of the Queensland East Coast, the Torres Strait, the Northern Prawn Fishery, and other interested parties.
4. Encourage and promote the use of by-catch reduction devices by commercial trawl operators.
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