Credit Systems for Bycatch and Biodiversity Conservation

Credit systems for mitigation of bycatch and habitat impact, incentive-based approaches, incentivize changes in fishery operator behavior and decision-making and allow flexibility in a least-cost method. Three types of credit systems, originally developed to address environmental pollution, are presented and evaluated as currently underutilized incentive-based approaches. The first, a cap-and-trade approach, evolved out of direct regulation through restricted limits with flexibility through the creation of tradeable unused portion of the limit, called credits. The second, a penalty-reward system, incentivizes bycatch- and habit-impact- reducing vessel behavior through rewards for positive behavior, and penalties for negative behavior. The third is a hybrid of the first two. All three systems can be used in the context of both absolute (fixed) and relative (rate-based or proportional) credits. Transferable habitat impact credit systems are developed for area management. The cap-and-trade credit system is directly compared to a comparable property rights system in terms of characteristics, strengths, weakness, and applicability. The Scottish Conservation Scheme and halibut bycatch reduction in the Alaskan multispecies groundfish fishery provide real-world examples of success with credit systems. The strengths, weaknesses, and applicability of credit systems are summarized, along with a set of recommendations. Cap-and-trade credit systems provide an important alternative to property rights, such as when rights are not feasible, and for this reason should prove useful for international fisheries. Penalty-reward and hybrid credit systems can substitute for cap-and-trade credit systems or property rights or complement them by addressing a related but otherwise unaddressed issue.

Life histories decide reserve benefits in transient yields and bycatch persistence

Recent research indicates that marine reserves can both improve fisheries yields of target species and maintain the persistence of bycatch species. However, the prevalent equilibrium analyses prevent our understandings in transient behavior at short-time scales. Here, we develop high dimensional theoretical frameworks by considering age structure to assess the relative advantages between reserve-only and no-reserve fisheries management strategies. Our results show that whether strategies with only reserves can achieve higher fisheries yields (measured by both weight and number) and maintain bycatch persistence depends on the life histories of both target and bycatch species through perspectives of transient oscillations. Our research has important practical applications especially for the West Coast groundfish fishery in the USA, as it suggests that reserves can perform benefits in both fisheries and conservation goals for target species with older ages at maturity and lower adult survivorship.

Chronic social disruption following a systemic fishery failure

In the United States, the iconic groundfish fishery for Gulf of Maine cod has endured several dramatic reductions in annual catch limits and been federally declared an economic disaster. Using a repeated cross-sectional survey of fishing captains to assess potential social impacts of the fishery failure, we found that psychological distress and social disruption were pervasive throughout New England fishing communities. For instance, our results indicate that 62% of captains self-reported severe or moderate psychological distress 1 y after the crisis began, and these patterns have persisted for 5 y. Using classification tree analyses, we found that low levels of trust in fisheries management was the most powerful predictor of both initial and chronic psychological distress. Distress was most severe among individuals without income diversity and those with dependents in the household. Compared to other aspects of fisheries, measuring and managing for noneconomic social outcomes and human well-being has lagged behind, even though it is a necessary component of mitigating the adverse impacts of fisheries disruptions.

Using Incentives to Reduce Bycatch and Discarding: Results Under the West Coast Catch Share Program

Catch share management was implemented in the bottom trawl sector of the West Coast Groundfish fishery in 2011 to address a range of issues including high bycatch and discard rates. The catch share programwas designed to remove the incentives to discard through full catch accounting, tradeable quotas, increased flexibility in fishing, and penalties for catch overages. We assess the effectiveness of the program in meeting its environmental objectives by comparing discard weights, proportions, and variability from 2004–2010 with 2011–2016. We analyzed these metrics for species managed using quota, including historically overfished stocks, as well as for non-quota species caught in the fishery. Discard amounts decreased over time for all species and declined to historic lows after the implementation of the program, remaining low through 2016 with much less inter-annual variability. Mean annual discards of two highly-targeted quota species, sablefishand Dover sole, showed the greatest decreases, falling by 97 and 86%, respectively. The discard proportion of overfished quota species fell by 50% on average. The unanticipated decline in discards of non-quotaspecies as well as the decreased variability in discard amounts for all species indicate that the incentives produced by catch share management provided additional ecosystem benefits.