A Multidisciplinary Workshop to Address Ecosystem­‐Level Impacts of Fisheries Bycatch on Marine Megafauna

RATIONALE

The selectivity of fishing operations is such that despite the sustained efforts made during the last decades to reduce it, the accidental capture of living marine resources (bycatch) sometimes followed by their discarding at sea remains an important point of friction between fisheries and biodiversity governance systems, particularly when emblematic, endangered or especially vulnerable species are concerned. Bycatch reduction practices have traditionally focused on command-and-control measures (e.g., time-and-area closures, effort reduction) or technology standards and associated legislative changes (e.g., mesh size, hook types, bycatch excluder devices, and mandated requirements that freeze technology in place). Incentive-based bycatch reduction practices such as use rights (e.g., Dolphin Mortality Limits, DMLs), taxes, credit schemes, or insurance, may more directly and cost-effectively reduce bycatch. This approach has received insufficient attention.

In addition, conventional bycatch reduction approaches give insufficient attention to the holistic (ecosystem-level) impacts of bycatch. Bycatch reduction simply focused on at-sea catch ignores opportunities offered by more cost- and ecologically-effective bycatch mitigation measures that may directly and more effectively increase impacted populations elsewhere in their geographic range or life cycle. Finally, at-sea bycatch reduction runs the danger of obtaining increasingly smaller increments in bycatch reduction at increasingly larger increments in costs (i.e. marginal costs) to the point where additional gains in bycatch reduction are outweighed by additional costs of bycatch reduction leading to a net loss in economic benefits. A net loss in economic benefits can also lead to a net loss in biodiversity and ecological benefits if the foregone economic benefits preclude conserving biodiversity at some other point in the holistic process, i.e. there can be an opportunity cost to at-sea bycatch reduction within a broad-based and holistic bycatch perspective. A broader-based ecosystem approach to biodiversity conservation thus allows incorporating a broader range of policy instruments, applied at life stages and geographical ranges other than those of the strict harvesting process to achieve better cost- and ecological effectiveness.

One of the most important forces reducing bycatch is technical change. Examples include for tuna purse seine fisheries the back down procedure and Medina panel that reduce dolphin bycatch or current development of ecological Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs),and for pelagic long line swordfish fisheries circle hooks and mackerel type bait that reduce sea turtle bycatch and post-hooking mortality. However, many conventional policy instruments, such as catch rights, time and area closures or effort reduction, even when aimed at bycatch reduction, are insufficient to cover all species, do not directly create desired economic incentives, are not cost-effective because they unnecessarily reduce profitable fishing opportunities that can help finance less expensive and more effective conservation elsewhere, and limit vessel flexibility to efficiently respond to changes in market, environmental, technological, or ecological conditions.

The challenge is to develop a portfolio of bycatch management instruments that not only directly reduce bycatch, but also create incentives to induce and direct bycatch-saving technical change. A related question is the impact of alternative mixes of bycatch reducing instruments, since invariably multiple instruments are imposed.

Biodiversity mitigation (offsets) is part of a holistic approach addressing all phases of a species’ life history throughout its geographic range and that provides the lowest risk, least-cost approach to conservation. It is not necessarily intended to offset current fishing or to substitute for current at-sea and other bycatch-reducing measures. Instead, it is intended to complement existing activities to provide a holistic conservation strategy that is least-cost and addresses species conservation over the entire geographical range and life history of species. As part of a comprehensive bycatch reduction conservation strategy, biodiversity mitigation enables consumers, processors, traders and brokers, and fishers to continue their activities and generate sufficient economic surplus to finance the mitigation that leads to population increases, not simply no net loss. This approach recognizes that there are cost-effective conservation measures that can be taken other than at-sea bycatch reduction devices and that these can have higher marginal biological and economic effectiveness than simple continued emphasis on steadily increasing bycatch reduction through conventional measures (with debatable efficiency due in part to diminishing returns).

Many questions arise about the best way to organize bycatch-saving technical change, inter alia: (i) the nature of public-private partnerships; (ii) the type and amount of research and development (R&D); (iii) financing methods in taxes and kind; (iv) who pays?; (v) length of R&D projects, (vi) and role and form of subsidies, etc.

The meeting will address many of these questions, but will focus on: (i) Endangered, vulnerable and other emblematic species bycatch in fisheries for highly migratory species; (ii) Economic and financial instruments to efficiently strengthen by-catch reduction policies; (iii) A broader-based ecosystem approach to by-catch reduction; and(iv) Concrete biodiversity mitigation strategies for the aforementioned bycatch species.

Co-organized by

NOAA Fisheries, Center for Environmental Economics University of California San Diego (CEE), Institute for Global Cooperation and Conflict University of California (iGCC), International Sustainable Seafood Foundation (ISSF), Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Centre for Fisheries & Aquaculture Economics & Management (FAME), and the Fisheries Expert Group of the IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management, IUCN/CEM/FEG.

Sponsored by

The European Board of Conservation and Development (EBCD), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), IUCN (tent.); CBD (Tent.); FAO (tent.)