research Lenfest Ocean Program: summary Protecting Ocean Life Through Marine Science July 2012

Catch Shares: A Useful Tool with Limits

Catch shares are a method of fisheries management in which Background fishermen get the right to harvest a share of the total allowable Catch share programs are like catch. They are widely used in some parts of the world, but their cap-and-trade for fish. They set a impact on the health of fish populations is unclear. According to fleet-wide fishing limit, or quota, and assign “shares” of that quota to three recent studies supported by the Lenfest Ocean Program, individual fishermen or to fishing catch shares reduce year-to-year variation in fishing mortal- groups. Holders of catch shares ity—likely because they end the harmful “race to fish”—but do may use them to fish during any not consistently affect other important ecological metrics, such part of the season or sell them to others. The concept is that when as the biomass of fish remaining in the population. The most fishermen have an ownership recent of these papers confirmed this conclusion with a more right to part of the fishery, they robust analysis and found that the “variance-dampening” effect will place greater importance on of catch shares is stronger when fishermen can keep their shares long-term sustainability. from year to year.

Catch shares shares can can benefit benefit fisheries, fisheries but ecological . . . but benefits ecological are unclear.benefits are unclear CITATIONS

Essington, T.E. 2010. Ecological indicators display Main effect: No effect: reduced variation in North American catch share fisheries.PNAS 107, 754–759. doi: 10.1073/ pnas.0907252107 Less variable fishing mortality Biomass of fish remaining in the ocean

non-catch shares non-catch shares catch shares Melnychuk, M. C., Essington, T. E., Branch, T. A., Heppell, S. S., Jensen, O. P., Link, J. S., Martell, S. J. D., mortality Parma, A. M., Pope, J. G. and Smith, A. D. M. 2012. quota Can catch share fisheries better track manage- ment targets? Fish and Fisheries , 13: 267–290. time doi: 10.1111/j.1467-2979.2011.00429.x 1000 1000 tons tons catch shares Essington, T. E., Melnychuk, M. C., Branch, T. A., Heppell, S. S., Jensen, O. P., Link, J. S., Martell, S. mortality J. D., Parma, A. M., Pope, J. G. and Smith, A. D. quota M. 2012. Catch shares, fisheries, and ecological stewardship: a comparative analysis of resource time responses to a rights-based policy instru- ment. Conservation Letters, 5: 186–195. doi: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2012.00226.x Other benefits, observed in fewer cases: In addition, the effectiveness of catch shares reduced discards, lower average fishing depends on certain design features: mortality, slight reduction in major cases Notably, fishermen need to have the right of overfishing. to hold on to shares from year to year. Fishery regions that use Catch Shares, 2000–2004 U.S. (Alaska) CANADA The map at left shows fi shery size and frequency of 8% (East Coast) 52% catch share use. The circles represent the number of stocks in the study, ranging from 6 to 64. Adapted from Melnychuk et al. (2012). EUROPE 11% CANADA (West Coast) 88% FREQUENT USE OF CATCH SHARES NEW ZEALAND 81% U.S. (N.E., (more than 75% of fi sheries) U.S. (West Coast) MidAtlantic) 0% 6% SOME USE OF CATCH SHARES U.S. (S. Atlantic Coast, SOUTH (25% to 75% of fi sheries) Gulf of Mexico) AMERICA AUSTRALIA 29% 92% 0% SOUTH INFREQUENT USE OF CATCH SHARES AFRICA (less than 25% of fi sheries) 58%

THrEE STudIES OF CATCH SHArES · Fisheries under catch shares met recommendations. But catch shares target catches more consistently. may provide other benefi ts. For example, 1. Catch shares in North America reduce they may stabilize mortality rates by · Overfi shing was less common under fl uctuations in mortality (Essington, 2010): eliminating the “race to fi sh,” in which catch shares, but also under quotas fi shermen compete to catch as much as Dr. Tim Essington of the University of that apply only to the fi shing fl eet as they can before the fi shing fl eet reaches Washington studied 15 catch share pro- a whole. (Eff ort controls had the most its overall limit. This can lead to wasteful grams in North America. He compared at overfi shing). practices such as discards and bycatch. least fi ve years of data from before and · Biomass did not appear to change with Catch shares might also stabilize mortal- after the start of each program and, in management approach. ity rates by reducing the incidence of some cases, compared closely matched major overfi shing. fi sheries that did not have catch shares. Fishery Regions That Use Catch Shares, 2000–20043. Catch shares generally do not correct The study found that under catch shares: Essington et al. (2012) also investigated Size of circle represents number of stocks in study, ranging fromoverfi 6 to 64. shing Frequency but of may use provide other benefi ts several attributes of catch share pro- • isFishing defined by mortality more than 75 and percent landings of total catch under a catch sha(Essingtonre program. et al., 2012): grams that may alter their eff ectiveness. showed fewer large fl uctuations. frequent use of catch shares (more than 75% of fisheries)The same researchers studied more One crucial attribute was durability, • Fishermensome use of were catch more shares likely (25%–75% to ofcomply fisheries) than 150 fi sheries worldwide, including or the right of fi shermen to retain their withinf catchrequent limits. use of catch shares (less than 25% of fisheries)84 with catch share programs in place. shares from year to year. Durability They used a novel method to account appeared necessary for the “variance • Rates of fi sh discards declined. for potential confounding factors. This dampening” that is the main eff ect of method statistically controlled for trends catch share programs. The authors also 2. Catch share fi sheries are more likely to that were under way in all fi sheries found that catch share fi sheries with meet management targets (Melnychuk and separated them from changes that higher on-board observer coverage that et al., 2012): only occurred in catch share fi sheries. targeted multiple species had somewhat Dr. Michael Melnychuk, Essington, and This global and more robust study lower mortality rates. eight colleagues compared data from 345 matched what Essington (2010) found fi sh stocks around the world and found in North America: catch shares reduced that: fl uctuations in fi shing mortality but did not aff ect biomass. The newer study also found reductions in average fi shing mortality, but only in a subset of fi sher- ies. These trends were the same regard- less of whether fi sheries were overfi shed before the catch share program. Other research had suggested that catch shares could correct overfi shing, but these The Lenfest Ocean Program was established papers found no evidence for that. in 2004 by the Lenfest Foundation and The authors concluded that catch shares is managed by the Pew Charitable Trusts. alone cannot overcome other factors that www.LenfestOcean.org A fi shing boat in the Alaskan walleye pollock fi shery, promote overfi shing such as pressure Email: [email protected] one of the fi rst to be managed with catch shares. to set catch limits that exceed scientifi c Twitter handle: @LenfestOcean Photo: Ed Melvin