GENERAL FISHERIES COMMISSION FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN ISSN 1020-9549 STUDIES AND REVIEWS No. 80 2006 This document gives an overview of the discussions on the concept of Operational Units, which THE OPERATIONAL UNITS APPROACH FOR FISHERIES was first conceived in 2000, and its development to date. The approach of categorizing fishing fleets MANAGEMENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA into homogeneous groups, or Operational Units, to implement effort control fisheries management, as requested by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, has been evaluated by many workshops, meetings and pilot studies, the conclusions of which are summarized in this document. Progress related to the agreement reached on the multidisciplinary criteria to define Operational Units is reported, together with outstanding uncertainties on the definition and use of the approach in certain cases. The data requirements and structure of four data compilation tables are also described in detail. ISBN 978-92-5-105619-6 ISSN 1020-9549 9 7 8 9 2 5 1 0 5 6 1 9 6 TR/M/A0846E/1/11.06/1250 STUDIES AND REVIEWS No. 80 GENERAL FISHERIES COMMISSION FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN THE OPERATIONAL UNITS APPROACH FOR FISHERIES MANAGEMENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA by Paolo Accadia Irepa Onlus − Istituto Ricerche Economiche per la Pesca e l'Acquacoltura, Italy and Ramón Franquesa Gabinete de Economía del Mar de la Universidad de Barcelona, Spain FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Rome, 2006 The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. ISBN 978-92-5-105619-6 All rights reserved. Reproduction and dissemination of material in this information product for educational or other non-commercial purposes are authorized without any prior written permission from the copyright holders provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of material in this information product for resale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holders. Applications for such permission should be addressed to the Chief, Electronic Publishing Policy and Support Branch, Information Division, FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy or by e-mail to [email protected] © FAO 2006 iii PREPARATION OF THIS DOCUMENT This document was commissioned by the Sub-Committee on Statistics and Information (SCSI) of the GFCM Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). It aims at providing an historical overview of, and background information on, the development and application of the concept of Operational Units (OUs) in the context of the Mediterranean fisheries. It reviews the outcomes of related meetings and activities carried out under the guidance of the SAC, mainly on the basis of pilot analysis and testing implemented by the FAO/GFCM Subregional projects, especially COPEMED, ADRIAMED and MedFisis. Emphasis is put on the role of the OUs for the purpose of monitoring fishing effort in each of the GFCM Geographical Sub-Areas (GSAs). The document highlights the need for sound data collection and analysis. The document was prepared by Paolo Accadia from the Istituto Ricerche Economiche per la Pesca e l’Acquacoltura (IREPA) (Italy) and Ramón Franquesa from the Gabinete de Economía del Mar de la Universidad de Barcelona (GEM) (Spain) with further editing provided by Matthew Camilleri, Coordinator of the SCSI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to extend special thanks to Messrs Alain Bonzon, Abdellah Srour, Matthew Camilleri, Piero Mannini and Rino Coppola for the comments and support provided in finalizing this publication. iv Accadia, P.; Franquesa, R. The Operational Units approach for fisheries management in the Mediterranean Sea. Studies and Reviews. General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean. No. 80. Rome, FAO. 2006. 36p. ABSTRACT This document gives an overview of the discussions on the concept of Operational Units which was first conceived in 2000 and its development to date. The approach of categorizing fishing fleets into homogenous groups, or Operational Units, to implement effort control fisheries management, as requested by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, has been evaluated by a good number of workshops, meetings and pilot studies, the conclusions of which are summarized in this document. Progress related to the agreement reached on the multidisciplinary criteria to define Operational Units is reported together with outstanding uncertainties on the definition and use of the approach in certain cases. The data requirements and structure of four data compilation tables are also described in detail. v CONTENTS 1. THE CONCEPT AND ITS ORIGIN .............................................................................. 1 2. THE EVOLUTION (HISTORY): FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE........................... 1 2.1 Operational Units, a preliminary study ........................................................................... 2 2.2 The Alboran study on economic indicators – 2001......................................................... 2 2.3 The Ancona meeting 2001 .............................................................................................. 3 2.4 The Madrid meeting 2003............................................................................................... 4 2.5 The Rome meeting 2003 – Working Group on Operational Units ................................. 5 2.6 The OUs in the Adriatic Sea ........................................................................................... 5 2.6.1 Some results by ADRIAMED 2004.............................................................. 7 2.7 The estimation of socio-economic indicators in the western Mediterranean.................. 8 2.8. The Workshop on Operational Units and Fishing Effort Measurement – Tangiers, July 2005 ......................................................................................................... 9 2.8.1 The current and future use of OUs in the FAO Global Inventory of Fisheries ...................................................................................................... 9 2.8.2 The current discussions on the EU fleet segmentation matrix................... 10 2.8.3 Standardizing fishing effort measurement by OUs.................................... 10 3. RESULTS – DATA REQUIREMENTS; DATA COMPILATION BASED ON NATIONAL ROUTINE MONITORING SCHEMES.................................................. 12 4. SUITABILITY TO SUPPORT THE FISHERY MANAGEMENT PROCESSES...... 14 5. TESTING THE OU CONCEPT IN A FISHERY MANAGEMENT CONTEXT ....... 15 6. MAIN CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................... 15 7. REFERENCES.............................................................................................................. 17 APPENDIXES 1. Operational Units Form – Basic Parameters.........................................................................19 2. List of minimum data requirements......................................................................................20 3. Fleet segmentation................................................................................................................21 4. Example of linking FAO–SAC fleet segments data with main fishing stocks in the GFCM Geographical Sub–Area 9..............................................................................22 5. Description of the four Operational Units tables..................................................................23 6. Fleet and area........................................................................................................................25 7. Main resource components...................................................................................................29 8. Effort.....................................................................................................................................32 9. Economic structure...............................................................................................................34 1 1. THE CONCEPT AND ITS ORIGIN In the light of a preliminary study commissioned by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean in 2000 (Camilleri, Coppola and De Leiva Moreno, 2000) and a series of supplementary studies and technical meetings, the following definition of an Operational Unit (OU) was proposed by the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and endorsed by the GFCM in 2001: “For the sake of managing fishing effort within a Management Unit, an Operational Unit is the group of fishing vessels practising the same type of fishing operation, targeting the same species or group of species and having a similar economic structure. The grouping of fishing vessels may be subject to change over time and depends on the management objective to be reached”. As declared during the Sub-Committee for Statistics and Information (SCSI) meeting in Ancona in April 2001, “the need to define OUs originates from the fact that stock assessment deals, by definition, with stocks whose management in turn deals with fishing (vessels and/or fishermen). In this respect, one should therefore focus on unifying the object to be analysed.” The identification of a group of vessels involved in the same