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Stock Stewardship Discussion
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Stock Stewardship/Biomass Allocations
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If you would like to post a comment on this subject, please send your contributions to me (Dick Allen) at rba@FisheryConsulting.com for posting. I will post both positive and negative comments on the subject, but I reserve the right to prevent my web site from becoming cluttered with material that is not relevant to the discussion, or is otherwise unacceptable to me. I will publish any acceptable submission without editing. In any case where I consider the material to be generally worthwhile, but for some reason unacceptable, I will offer the contributor the opportunity to alter the objectionable content. If you don't want your contact information published, please do not include it in the body of your message.
I may open the page for direct submissions if I gain more confidence that it will not be vandalized or misused.
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Subject Dick's Response to Trevor
Date
Tue Jan 25 2005 14:26
Author Dick Allen
(rba@FisheryConservation.net)
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Dear Council Members:
Trevor Kenchington responded to my message about stock stewardship shares by first expanding the list of scientists who have been involved in the development of the concept of biomass allocation, and then pointing out potential pitfalls as he sees them. I'm happy to acknowledge the contributions made by John Caddy, Trevor, Ralph Townsend, and Stratis Gavaris to a concept that each has called by a different name. Trevor suggested that the term "biomass allocation" would be most appropriate. I still like the term stock stewardship shares, because it emphasizes the conservation incentive that is embodied in the concept.
Trevor expressed his belief that the Council workload might preclude consideration of biomass allocations at this time. I would suggest that many of the controversies that consume the Council stem from the failure to make explicit allocations accompanied by clear accounting procedures. I would also suggest that the language in the Sector Allocation provisions of Amendment 13 raises similar issues that will eventually have to be dealt with using an approach that approximates biomass allocations. That language states that "If a hard or target TAC allocated to a Sector is not exceeded in a given fishing year, the Sector's allocation of TAC or DAS will not be reduced for the following fishing year as a result of an overage of a hard or target TAC by non-compliant sectors or by non-Sector vessels." We can expect a situation to arise in which one sector has taken less than its TAC, and another sector or non-sector has taken more than the target TAC. We might also have a stock assessment that indicates the need for an adjustment to the TAC, either up or down. How should that adjustment be apportioned, considering the language in Amendment 13? If the adjustment were down, would the compliant sector take the same cut as the non-compliant sector? How much of the needed TAC adjustment could be attributed to the overage of the non-compliant sector, compared to the positive contribution of the sector that took less than its TAC? These are the issues that become relatively straightforward if sector allocations are tracked using the Caddy/Kenchington/Townsend/Gavaris approach.
Trevor also expressed concern that biomass allocation might enable one or more well-heeled share-holders to take over the fishery simply by not fishing for a few years. He suggests that the active participants could somehow be excluded from the fishery in this way. As I see it, that would not be possible. Anyone who did not fish on their allocation would be helping the active participants and would have no way to diminish the participation of the active fishermen.
Consider a simple example. Assume that Benevolent Harvester (BH) and Capitalist Conserver (CC) each get an initial biomass allocation of 1,000 tons. CC decides to take over the fishery by not fishing on his stock. Let's say that his stock grows by 20% each year because he leaves its surplus production to accumulate. That rate would slow as the stock grew, but that characteristic of natural populations does not affect our example. After 5 years, CC's stock reaches about 2,500 tons. BH keeps fishing at a sustainable rate, thus maintaining his stock at 1,000 tons. BH enjoys the high catch per unit effort that comes with stock abundance. His costs are therefore reduced and his profit is higher. The fact that his percentage share of the total stock has been reduced from 50% to 28% does not hurt him at all - he still has his 1,000-ton stock and he is making money off CC's conservation, not by catching more fish, but by catching them more easily. It doesn't hurt me if another customer of my bank lets the interest on his account accumulate while I take mine out every year.
What is it that CC could do to exclude BH from the fishery? Why would CC even contemplate such a strategy?
Trevor also asserts that "the optimum yield is, by definition, the catch obtained by fishing
at a rate that maximizes net benefits to the nation," and that a shareholder who chose to underfish would be reducing the net benefit to the nation. I'm certain that Trevor is misusing the concept of optimum yield, and how it might be calculated, but this isn't the place to argue that point to any broadly acceptable conclusion.
I hope that you will consider the possibility that biomass allocations/stock stewardship shares could help to resolve some of the most troubling issues facing the Council and the fishery management system as a whole.
Dick Allen
35 Bliss Rd.
Wakefield, RI 02879
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