Symposium Adds Social and Economic Impacts to Fisheries Management Decisions
“If there are fewer fishermen working, will the rest of society really benefit from that? Will fishermen really benefit from that?” Seth Macinko - Department of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island. ©Photo by Sam Murfitt
It might be true that fisheries management is about managing people rather than fish, but the question remains: What improvements are needed to more successfully address the human component of fisheries management?
More than 150 fishermen, scientists, fisheries managers and students attended the 2010 Northeast Regional Social Science Symposium at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, on April 1.
The symposium focused on the social and economic aspects of fisheries management decisions, with the end goal to identify current and future needs and determine how best to meet those challenges.
New England, has a rich heritage of fishing and yet today’s fishermen must face mounting pressure from new laws that limit activities and thus impact their income and employment opportunities.
Throughout the day, speakers and attendees discussed various ways to ensure impacts to fishermen and fishing communities were factored more prominently in management decisions. Social scientists can provide the tools necessary to balance species conservation while still maintaining a viable fishing industry by collecting data that allow managers to consider what each alternative could bring.
During the discussion session, Erik Anderson, head of the N.H. Commercial Fishermen’s Association, reinforced the idea that people making future management decisions need to be aware of all the complexities and tradeoffs that could result.
“Managers need to create a matrix of opportunity to allow the industry to be flexible,” he said.
Speakers and attendees noted a serious lack of data on fishing households and families, employment records and income.
“We had better data on fishermen’s employment and income from log books back in the 1860s than we do today,” said Dan Georgianna, chancellor professor in the Department of Fisheries Oceanography at UMass/SMAST. Numerous people noted that baseline data — including vessel economics, social infrastructure, change to shoreside communities, among many others — are necessary to help evaluate the short- and long-term impacts of changes in management decisions, yet this often remains a prominent gap in the decision-making process.
Carolyn Eastman, an educational consultant whose husband is a fisherman based out of Seabrook, N.H., feels that this gap should have been filled a while ago.
“Collecting baseline data a year after the management changes have been made isn’t helpful,” she said. “We needed to collect that data six months ago, or even before that, because baseline information is critical in making the right management decisions.”
“We’re always scrambling to get data and establish a baseline after the fact,” added keynote speaker Susan Hanna, marine economist for Oregon Sea Grant. However, social science is not usually conducted in a way that helps to frame and shape discussion of fisheries management alternatives, she said.
Keynote speaker Hanna focused on the path ahead for social science data. “On the west coast, the fishing industry and communities have been the drivers in management and social science data.” ©Photo by Sam Murfitt
In response to this need, the social science branch of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) has begun initiatives for fishery performance measures that take into account the human component. Job satisfaction, port infrastructure, profitability, distribution of landings, employment, ownership, compliance, bycatch, and government transparency are among the data collected, explained Eric Thunberg, economist at the NEFSC. However, a severe lack of time and resources has, at times, delayed the process of collecting the information.
Other suggestions included the need to construct more efficient fishing vessels to offset rising fuel costs, as well as the need for a standardized method of collecting social and economic data. Employment identification numbers could be used to obtain more accurate data on fishermen’s employment and income.
Discussion also centered around the feasibility of sectors to take control of the poundage of fish landed and to set the market price ahead of time to allow for direct economic benefits to fishermen.
Keynote speaker Hanna focused on the path ahead for social science data. “On the west coast, the fishing industry and communities have been the drivers in management and social science data,” she explained.
One Oregon fishing community formed an ocean resources team, whereby they defined a marine stewardship area and developed community-based management so that fishermen had control over the local fishing areas.
In a different region of the Pacific Northwest, offshore vessel fleets formed the Pacific Whiting Conservation Cooperative. Using internal vessel coordination, fishermen were able to increase their revenues and decrease their costs, Hanna explained. The fishermen made coordinated decisions based on the timing and share of their harvest and bycatch avoidance.
Hanna also discussed how some Pacific Northwest groundfishermen began an industry-funded permit buyback to remove one-third of the vessels from the fleet to help increase revenue among the remaining fishermen.
Erik Anderson, head of the N.H. Commercial Fishermen’s Association, said, “Managers need to create a matrix of opportunity to allow the industry to be flexible.” ©Photo by Sam Murfitt
Fishermen were facing a loss of their fishing grounds due to the development of conservation areas, as well as decreased volumes of catch because of tightened groundfish regulations. The trawl fleet initiated the rationalization, and social science was used during the lengthy development process to ensure successful program design and initial allocation.
Not everyone was in agreement that these ideas would be best for fishermen in the Northeast. “If there are fewer fishermen working, will the rest of society really benefit from that? Will fishermen really benefit from that?” asked Seth Macinko, associate professor in the Department of Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island.
Throughout the symposium, many discussions centered around sector management. Jen Litteral, policy director for the Island Institute in Rockland, Maine, explained that the Port Clyde fishermen formed a groundfish sector in hopes of taking ownership of an area and successfully operating as a collective.
Although the fishermen are apprehensive of the changes taking place, they are hopeful about the potential benefits from their decision. “Enforcement will be by the fishermen themselves rather than a top-down approach,” Litteral said. “And rather than being one voice out of 2,000 individual fishermen, a sector representative will be one voice out of 17 that the Council hears.”
This symposium was coordinated and sponsored by N.H. Sea Grant, the National Marine Fisheries Service Cooperative Research Program, and the Northeast Consortium. The planning committee included members from the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, the Massachusetts Fisherman’s Partnership, the University of Massachusetts School of Marine Science and Technology (UMass/ SMAST) and the Northeast Fishery Science Center.