Models for an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

This document is one outcome from a workshop held in Gizo in October 2010 attended by 82 representatives from government, NGO's private sector, and communities. The target audience for the document is primarily organizations planning to work with coastal communities of Solomon Islands to implement Community-Based Resource Management (CBRM). It is however also envisaged that the document will serve as a reference for communities to better understand what to expect from their partners and also for donors, to be informed about agreed approaches amongst Solomon Islands stakeholders. This document does not attempt to summarize all the outcomes of the workshop; rather it focuses on the Solomon Islands Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) National Plan of Action (NPoA): Theme 1: Support and implementation of CBRM and specifically, the scaling up of CBRM in Solomon Islands. Most of the principles given in this document are derived from experiences in coastal communities and ecosystems as, until relatively recently, these have received most attention in Solomon Islands resource management. It is recognized however that the majority of these principles will be applicable to both coastal and terrestrial initiatives. This document synthesizes information provided by stakeholders at the October 2010 workshop and covers some basic principles of engagement and implementation that have been learned over more than twenty years of activities by the stakeholder partners in Solomon Islands. The document updates and expands on a summary of guiding principles for CBRM which was originally prepared by the Solomon Islands Locally Managed Marine Area Network (SILMMA) in 2007

A Review of Applications Evaluating Fisheries Management Scenarios through Marine Ecosystem Models.

Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) is a framework to explore the tradeoffs amongst fishing strategies and assess the consequences for achieving management goals provided sources of uncertainty by means of simulation models (referred to as operating models). Single-species stock assessment often implements simulations for MSE, but the operating models often omit the dynamics of key biological interactions. This could be a disadvantage for the evaluation of tradeoffs as species interactions could have an impact on the performance of harvesting strategies. Tools for conducting ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM), such as integrated ecosystem assessments, include executing MSEs with ecosystem models, many of which explicitly include biological interactions. Although the support for EBFM has grown over the years, the amount of information provided by MSEs based on ecosystem models appears to be limited. A clear summary of such efforts would provide beneficial information for future efforts for EBFM. Herein, an inventory of applications simulating MSEs with ecosystem models that explicitly include biological interactions was developed based on findings from a literature review. First, the methodologies and foci across all identified applications are analyzed. Next, summaries of each application are provided. Lastly, general observations are provided along with recommendations for future applications.publishedVersio

Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement recognizes the need for effective and progressive responses to the urgent threat of climate change, through mitigation and adaptation measures, while taking into account the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems. The inclusion of adaptation measures in the fisheries and aquaculture sector is currently hampered by a widespread lack of targeted analyses of the sector's vulnerabilities to climate change and associated risks, as well as the opportunities and responses available. This report provides the most up-to-date information on the disaggregated impacts of climate change for marine and inland fisheries, and aquaculture, in the context of poverty alleviation and the differential dependency of countries on fish and fishery resources. The work is based on model projections, data analyses, as well as national, regional and basin-scale expert assessments. The results indicate that climate change will lead to significant changes in the availability and trade of fish products, with potentially important geopolitical and economic consequences, especially for those countries most dependent on the sector

Are Marine Protected Areas in the Turks and Caicos Islands ecologically or economically valuable?

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are often advocated by ecologists as a method of conserving valuable fish stocks while ensuring the integrity of ecological processes in the face of increasing anthropogenic disturbance. In the Turks and Caicos Islands there is little evidence that current MPAs are ecologically beneficial but there are indications that boundary changes may enhance queen conch and finfish production. Implementing boundary changes usually requires political will and, hence, quantifiable economic benefits. Assessing the value of reef fish is particularly important because they are potentially valuable for consumptive and nonconsumptive purposes. We demonstrate the nonconsumptive economic value of increased Nassau grouper size and abundance to the dive tourism industry through a paired comparison conjoint survey of visiting divers. Our results suggest that accounting for the non-consumptive economic value of increased Nassau grouper abundance and size may have a large impact on the economic viability of ecologically functional MPAs

FLBEIA fisheries management simulation model. Definition of new criteria and guidelines for efficient validation of the model using global sensitivity analysis

229 p.En esta tesis se ha desarrollado el modelo bio-económico de simulación pesquera FLBEIA y se han definido una serie de direcciónes para validarlo y fomentar la validación de los modelos de simulación pesquera. El modelo FLBEIA da respusta a la necesidad de modelos de este tipo identificada en el marco de los análisis de impacto llevado a cabo por la Comisión Europea para anticipar la eficacia de las estrategias de gestión pesquera. La modelización de la incertidumbre ha sido un punto clave en el desarrollo del modelo FLBEIA sigue la aproximación de evaluación de estrategias de gestión que formaliza la incorporación de la incertidumbre en el proceso de toma de decisiones. Al ser los modelos de simulación abtracciones de la realidad, no son capaces de describir el sistema real de manera perfecta y es necesario validarlos para asegurar que representan el sistema modelado de manera idónea. El análisis de sensibilidad global es una de las técnicas cuantitativas más utilizadas en la validación de modelos de simulación. Sin embargo, su uso en modelos pesqueros es escaso. El conjunto de directrices definitivas en esta tesis permite condicionar los modelos pesqueros de manera efectiva y combinar dos de los métodos de análisis de sensibilidad global más utilizados. La combinación de estos métodos permite identificar los factores de entrada que más impactan en los resultados del modelo con un coste computacional aceptable para disponer de un modelo reducido al cual poder aplicar posteriormente el método más costoso. El modelo FLBEIA y las directrices propuestas se han aplicado a la pesquería demersal que opera en la fachada atlántica de la península ibérica

An exploratory approach to social impact assessment of public policy decisions: Multiple stakeholders perspectives on the social impact of overfishing in New England groundfisheries in the 1990s

This thesis seeks to understand how stakeholders\u27 perspectives and understanding of social impacts influence decision processes. Understanding stakeholders\u27 comprehension of social impacts provides insight as to how they weigh these impacts against others when making decisions. Moreover, the way stakeholders influence, or are influenced by, management decisions provides information on the use and development of methodologies successful in assessing social impacts and communicating the results. Built on this information, the main objective is to explore and develop a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) approach that could capture and integrate multiple stakeholders\u27 perspectives in predicting impacts from ongoing, renewable resource management actions. The research is framed around grounded theory and causal analysis. It applies qualitative and participatory methods to analyze a case study of the overfishing and collapse of the New England groundfish fisheries in the 1990s. To enact a fisheries management plan amendment, Environmental Impact Statements (EIS, which include an SIA) must be submitted. Agencies use SIA guidelines to carry out such assessments but relatively few scientific investigations have looked at the relevance and accuracy of social variables utilized, their relationships to predictions made, and how they are used in policymaking. Lack of evaluation of SIA is thus a major limitation to the advancement of the discipline. Therefore, an exploratory conceptual approach to SIA is developed in this thesis, which includes two components: a detailed list of social impact and social process variables for fisheries management and a model diagram that visually represents causal relationships. The conceptual approach is used to document and analyze the aforementioned case study. The New England groundfish collapse case study exposed the difficulties of balancing management actions intended to achieve biological sustainability with social, economic and cultural forces. Technological advances, favorable economic conditions, the increase in seafood demand, and government encouragement and assistance, encouraged fishermen expand their capacity to fish until industry\u27s infrastructure became overcapitalized and the stocks overfished. Emergency actions were thus enacted in 1994. Two amendments, 5 & 7, to the Northeast Multispecies Fisheries Management Plan were passed in hopes of ameliorating the situation, leaving little time to predict or understand the magnitude of their impacts. This study aims to shed light on the different social impacts experienced as a result of these actions