This paper analyzes a unique fisheries co-management institution in Japan that has implemented two distinct sets of co-management rules within a single fishing season. The uniqueness stems from the ...fact that the fishing effort coordination implemented during the first half of the season and the ‘derby’ fishing during the latter half sit at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of cooperative behavior. The paper reveals that this rather complex co-management institution is designed to ‘fit’ the multiple ecological and socio-economic objectives that the fishermen desire to achieve. We broaden the concept of institutional fit a la Young by bringing in the notion of ‘shared understanding’ that the fishermen construct through their daily social interactions negotiating various ecological and socio-economic objectives that they wish to achieve.
•Japanese spiny lobster fishery case study shows a complex ‘hybrid institution’ leads to institutional fit.•Economic needs and social values of resource users (fishers) are heterogenous and sometimes conflicting.•Ecological conditions of targeted species also vary across spatial and temporal scales.•Institutional fit can only be achieved through combination of partial fits.•Institutional fit requires shared understanding of the resource users which is socially constructed through their interactions.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Pursuit of the triple bottom line of economic, community and ecological sustainability has increased the complexity of fishery management; fisheries assessments require new types of data and analysis ...to guide science-based policy in addition to traditional biological information and modeling. We introduce the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), a broadly applicable and flexible tool for assessing performance in individual fisheries, and for establishing cross-sectional links between enabling conditions, management strategies and triple bottom line outcomes. Conceptually separating measures of performance, the FPIs use 68 individual outcome metrics--coded on a 1 to 5 scale based on expert assessment to facilitate application to data poor fisheries and sectors--that can be partitioned into sector-based or triple-bottom-line sustainability-based interpretative indicators. Variation among outcomes is explained with 54 similarly structured metrics of inputs, management approaches and enabling conditions. Using 61 initial fishery case studies drawn from industrial and developing countries around the world, we demonstrate the inferential importance of tracking economic and community outcomes, in addition to resource status.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article provides the first rigorous analysis of the effects of revenue sharing and social capital and identifies the mechanism through which revenue sharing and social capital affect resource ...outcomes. Revenue sharing alters harvest incentives but also fosters social capital through bonding a group financially, which can affect the incentive for cooperation. Similarly, social capital counteracts the incentive to free-ride induced by revenue sharing in addition to sustaining the incentive to cooperate. Using data collected from Japanese fishery groups, we find evidence that revenue sharing improves economic outcomes primarily through incentivizing fishers to develop their information networks.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
The socio-ecological systems (SESs) framework provides cross-disciplinary insight into complex environmental problems. Numerous studies have applied the SES framework to coastal and marine ...environments over the last two decades. We review and analyze 98 of those studies to (i) describe how SES concepts were examined and measured, (ii) describe how the studies included feedbacks and thresholds, and (iii) identify and analyze elements unique to coastal and marine SES frameworks. We find that progress has been made in understanding key SES properties in coastal and marine ecosystems, which include resilience, adaptive capacity, vulnerability, and governance. A variety of methods has been developed and applied to analyze these features qualitatively and quantitatively. We also find that recent studies have incorporated land-based stressors in their analyses of coastal issues related to nutrient runoff, bacterial pollution, and management of anadromous species to represent explicit links in land-to-sea continuums. However, the literature has yet to identify methods and data that can be used to provide causal evidence of non-linearities and thresholds within SES. In addition, our findings suggest that greater alignment and consistency are needed in models with regard to metrics and spatial boundaries between ecological and social systems to take full advantage of the SES framework and improve coastal and marine management.
Seafood species vary in their health benefits (e.g., from omega-3 fatty acids) and risks (e.g., from methylmercury or polychlorobiphenyls). Reflecting these risks and benefits, multiple public and ...private organizations offer guidance to consumers on seafood consumption. The effect of this guidance is unknown; previous literature has been unable to disentangle the effects of messages with differing health information, provided by different sources, on demand for different types of seafood. The result is ambiguity regarding the drivers of observed changes in seafood demand. This study investigates the effect of health risk and benefit information on preferences for wild and farmed salmon and swordfish, three species targeted by consumer guidance. The analysis applies an experimental auction with seafood consumers informed by a Bayesian risk-learning model. The model provides a systematic way to disentangle effects on seafood demand, for example, by evaluating whether changes in demand for different species are due to information content or source. Using this approach, we test the effect of guidance provided by four different public and private groups in the United States. Difference-in-difference tests find no impact of health benefit information regardless of source or message, but find multiple effects of health risk information that vary across different types of guidance. These findings suggest that current guidance does not improve consumers' ability to balance health risks and benefits. We also identify potential avenues to improve the efficacy of this guidance.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
This paper investigates Japanese consumers' willingness to pay for Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) ecolabelled seafood using a sealed bid, second price auction. Participants in an experiment in ...Tokyo were provided varying degrees of information about the status of world and Japanese fisheries and the MSC program in sequential rounds of bidding on ecolabelled and nonlabelled salmon products. A random‐effects tobit regression shows that there is a statistically significant premium of about 20 per cent for MSC‐ecolabelled salmon over nonlabelled salmon when consumers are provided information on both the status of global fish stocks and the purpose of the MSC program. This premium arises from a combination of an increased willingness to pay for labelled products and a decreased willingness to pay for unlabelled products. However, in the absence of experimenter‐provided information, or when provided information about the purpose of the MSC program alone without concurrent information about the need for the MSC program, there is no statistically significant premium.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Cooperatives are increasingly proposed as solutions for sustainable fisheries management. While individual case studies and economic theory suggest that cooperatives may manage fisheries effectively ...under some conditions, there is little empirical evidence comparing the actions of cooperative fisheries across a diverse set of environments. This study applies a standardized survey method to collect data from a set of cooperatively managed fisheries from around the globe, documenting their social, economic, and ecological settings as well as the cooperative behaviors in which they engage and the role they play in conservation. The resulting database covers 67 cooperatives from the major oceanic regions of the world, providing a unique overview of the global diversity of fishery cooperatives. It enables empirical analysis of the links between the characteristics and contexts of fisheries, such as the development status of the host nation, fisheries management practices, and species characteristics, and the collective actions taken by fishery cooperatives. The evidence shows that cooperatives form in a variety of development and governance contexts, and in diverse kinds of fisheries. Fishery cooperatives often take actions directed toward coordinating harvest activities, adopting and enforcing restrictions on fishing methods and effort, and taking direct conservation actions such as establishment of private marine protected areas.
► Cooperatively managed fisheries can support sustainable fisheries management. ► This study analyzes characteristics of 67 fishing cooperatives around the world. ► Results demonstrate the broad diversity of cooperative fisheries. ► Outcomes illustrate ties between incentives and actions of cooperative fisheries. ► Study finds link between private marine protected areas and territorial user rights.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
We theoretically demonstrate the net change in welfare when moving from an open-access institution to a monopoly resource manager. A monopoly renewable resource manager, such as a harvester ...cooperative, may create a gain relative to a rent-dissipating sector because of its internalization of the impact of harvesting on the resource stock. As the monopolist reduces harvest, resource stocks recover and resource rent is generated through reduced harvesting costs. Thus, it is possible that the monopoly harvest exceeds the rent-dissipated harvest over time, leaving both producers and consumers better off. We argue that local resource management institutions that exert market power should not be considered violations of antitrust laws without first considering the costs and benefits of monopoly management. In cases where outside management has not had success, local management with monopoly power could represent a second-best solution.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In 2009, Rhode Island implemented a pilot catch share program around summer flounder, or fluke, a state-managed species that is jointly harvested with the Northeast Multispecies groundfish complex. A ...sector was given a fluke allocation to land when they wished, while the rest of the fleet was managed through sub-seasonal total harvest caps and daily trip limits. Sector members avoided fluke landings during seasonal fluke derbies, instead shifting landings to post-derby closures in the general fishery, when the price was higher. However, they also affected prices of species they targeted instead. We combine predictions of counterfactual 2009 daily landings by sector vessels with a panel model of trip-level ex-vessel prices for 25 products targeted by the groundfish fleet to project what revenues would have been in the absence of the sector program. We find the pilot program increased fleetwide revenues by over $800,000, including benefits of over $250,000 to non-sector vessels.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
While most of the attention in the scientific and policy literature on rights-based institutions has been devoted to Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), there are alternatives that involve ...different configurations of use rights. One such alternative is a space-based option commonly referred to as Territorial Use Rights Fisheries (TURFs). TURFs have been utilized in island fisheries off Southeast Asia for decades, and they have been well studied, particularly by anthropologists and sociologists. This paper discusses case studies of TURF organizations in Japan and Chile from an economics perspective. We discuss the historical origins of each system, outline the legal and institutional structures of the systems, and then discuss how each system manages nearshore coastal resources. We discuss similarities and differences across the many specific collective management structures adopted by Japanese and Chilean TURF organizations. We then discuss how outcomes differ from what might emerge under ITQs.
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BFBNIB, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
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