Fishing quotas in Europe: who gets the right to fish?

Under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, each Member State decides how to allocate its national fishing quota to its fishing fleet. Griffin Carpenter and Richard Kleinjans explain that many issues in fisheries policy are the result of these decisions around access and distribution, and there are ripe opportunities for reform

EU common fisheries policy is bound for a Brexit shake-up

Under the EU's Common Fisheries Policy, each Member State decides how to allocate its national fishing quota to its fishing fleet. Griffin Carpenter and Richard Kleinjans explain that many issues in fisheries policy are the result of these decisions around access and distribution, and there are ripe opportunities for reform

Landing the blame : the influence of EU Member States on quota setting

Fisheries in European Union (EU) waters have been managed under the Common Fisheries Policy since 1983. The main regulatory tool in EU fisheries management is the use of Total Allowable Catches (TACs). In principle, TACs are set according to biological scientific advice provided by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) which recommends catch limits with the objective of maximising catches in a sustainable manner. The objective of this paper is to compare TACs set by the EU and its Member States between 2001 and 2015 with those recommended by ICES in their annual scientific advice in order to (a) investigate the level of compliance with scientific advice by the European Council and, (b) consider whether particular Member States have received more TACs above advice than others. For the time-series analysed, the European Council set TACs above scientific advice by an average of 20% per year, with around 7 out of every 10 TACs exceeding advice. Of all Member States, Denmark and the United Kingdom received the highest TACs in volume above scientific advice. Relative to the size of their TAC however, Spain and Portugal exceeded advice by the greatest percentage. Greater transparency is required to determine what takes place during the closed door negotiations and to improve the fishery sustainability credentials of the EU and its Member States

Brexit and fishing: How can the UK deliver a 'successful' fisheries policy after Brexit?

Halfway through the Brexit negotiations and delivering on the promises made to voters in the run up to the Brexit vote with regards to fishing remains an incredibly tough task. Richard Barnes, Chris Williams, Bryce Stewart, Bethan O'Leary, Thomas Appleby, and Griffin Carpenter write that 'success' for the UK will only be possible by working with its EU neighbours, and listening to both stakeholder groups and the diverse actors within them

It's still uncertain how the UK will deliver a 'successful' fisheries policy after Brexit

Halfway through the Brexit negotiations and delivering on the promises made to voters in the run-up to the Brexit vote with regards to fishing remains an incredibly tough task. Richard Barnes, Chris Williams, Bryce Stewart, Bethan O’Leary, Thomas Appleby, and Griffin Carpenter write that ‘success’ for the UK will only be possible by working with its EU neighbours and listening to both stakeholder groups and the diverse actors within them

The I, the T, or the Q? Disentangling the effects of individual transferable quotas on the health of fish stocks

A growing practice in fisheries management is the allocation access rights to marine fisheries through individual transferable quota (ITQs) – limits on the amount of fish allocated to individual licences as transferable permits. By establishing an ownership claim over the right to fish and a market for exchange, ITQs are purported to provide a conservation incentive that reduces or eliminates overfishing while increasing economic efficiency. Yet despite enthusiastic support for ITQs as a conservation tool, the connection between ITQs and stewardship remains a theory in need of validation. Where research has found that ITQs outperform non-ITQ fisheries in protecting against overfishing, this has been demonstrated through problematic control groups that cover a wide range of systems including unregulated fisheries. As ITQ systems are a collection of management features, there is a lack of understanding of which attribute is associated with positive outcomes – the I, the T, or the Q. This paper explores this question through a statistical analysis of 150 fisheries from around the world, documenting their changes in fisheries management system (e.g. ITQ, IQ, quota pool, effort-based) and the health of the corresponding fish stocks (e.g. fishing mortality, biomass). The results indicate that a more nuanced view of ITQs and conservation incentives is required as ITQs are neither necessary nor sufficient to deliver positive environmental outcomes. An understanding of ITQs/catch shares and other allocation systems as a combination of design attributes would greatly improve debates surrounding fisheries management

Sustainability now or later? Estimating the benefits of pathways to maximum sustainable yield for EU Northeast Atlantic fisheries

8 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, supporting information http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.06.015Most countries have the goal to manage their fisheries to achieve a combination of biological, economic, social, and political objectives [1] and [2]. This is also the case for the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). According to Article 2 of the CFP [3]: “The CFP shall ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the long-term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, and of contributing to the availability of food supplies”. [...]Peer Reviewe

Who gets to fish for sea bass? Using social, economic, and environmental criteria to determine access to the English sea bass fishery

Transparent, performance-based approaches to allocating fishing opportunities are required for signatories to the Aarhus Convention and the European Union's (EU) Member States via the Common Fisheries Policy. The lack of an operational framework to support this requirement means such a system is seldom explicitly used. Using the English commercial sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) fishery as a case study, operationalisation of this policy requirement is evaluated using a Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework. MCDA is a decision-making tool allowing users to explicitly evaluate complex, potentially conflicting, criteria, enabling wider costs and benefits to be considered. The sea bass fishery was selected as the dramatic stock decline since 2010 has meant difficult policy choices regarding the allocation of scarce fishing opportunities between different user groups. To inform the MCDA, the three main English sea bass fishing methods (nets, hooks, and trawls) are evaluated across thirteen social, economic, and environmental criteria to generate a performance score. Importance weightings for each criterion, developed from 50 surveys of fishers, industry representatives, managers, non-governmental organisations, and the wider public, are used to combine these performance scores generating an overall score for the MCDA. Results show that regardless of stakeholder group questioned, hooks achieve the highest MCDA performance, followed by nets, and then trawls. This suggests that taking a performance-based approach to the allocation of fishing opportunities in the English fishing fleet have a prioritisation by fishing type. MCDA could be used to promote transparency, objectivity and social, environmental and economic sustainability into European and UK fisheries