Unit vii Methods of Management

• Input control measures • Output control measures• Ecosystem management • Community and participatory management• Trade regulation • Certification• Incentives and disincentives

Introduction • Fish is a renewable natural resource but not infinite.• Fishery resources need to be monitored and managed to

maintain harvest at sustainable levels as they provide food and livelihood security to millions of population.

• Management of fisheries is not confined to management of stocks alone but it should consider all the stakeholders associated with this sector directly or indirectly.

• The management measures adopted in temperate countries are not directly adoptable to the multi-species and multi-gear tropical fisheries of India

• The management of fisheries in India is governed by rules and regulations formulated under the Indian Fisheries Act 1897 and later under the Marine Fisheries Regulation Act 1978.

• The regulatory measures formulated under the above Acts and Regulations by and large cover prohibition of exploitation of resources by destructive gears, explosives and poison.

Management at the local level• A significant advantage of co-management systems is the

ability to take advantage of local knowledge about stock dynamics and ecology.

• Local knowledge is a valuable substitute or complement to biological data derived from centralized programmes.

• Other advantages include the ability to preserve artisanal

fishery.

• Highly migratory stocks are likely to require larger management areas and more complex management .

• In some cases, ITQs and co-management were found to strengthen each other.

Management at the national level• Although management at the national level is in general a

government responsibility, user participation (information, consultation) is important for the outcome of management measures at this level.

• It is becoming increasingly evident that a necessary condition for successful fishery management is industry support for the programme. Without widespread industry support a fishery management programme has little chance of success.

What are the major problems

Fishery management

• The integrated process of information gathering, analysis, planning, consultation, decision-making, allocation of resources and formulation and implementation, with enforcement as necessary, of regulations or rules which govern fisheries activities in order to ensure the continued productivity of the resources and the accomplishment of other fisheries objectives.

Objectives of fishery management

• To maintain the target species at or above the levels necessary to ensure their continued productivity (biological).

• To minimize the impacts of fishing on the physical environment and on non-target (bycatch), associated and dependent species (ecological)

• To maximize the net incomes of the participating fishers (economic).

• To maximize employment opportunities for those dependent on the fishery for their livelihoods (social).

Key goal in fishery Management

• Maximum sustainable yield

• Maximum economic yield

• Maintain spawning stock

• Ecological sustainable yield

Maximum sustainable yield

• Maximum sustainable yield is the number (or weight) of a species that can be removed from the stock of animals without impacting the long-term stability of the population

Maximum economic yield

• MEY: A sustainable catch or effort level that creates the largest difference between (discounted) total revenues and the total costs of fishing.

Maintain spawning stock• The decline of many fisheries has been due to reduced

recruitment caused by low level of the spawning stock.

• Many of the worlds great fisheries particularly those based on clupeid species such as sardine and herrings ,have collapsed owing to recruitment failure.

• The problem is that the minimal level of spawning stock required to maintain recruitment is not known in most species.

• Around 50% of the unexploited stock is required to maintain high level of recruitment.

Methods of management

• If fishing pressure is not controlled in some way, it will increase until at best the fishery just breaks even economically and at worst the stock collapses through being unable to reproduce itself.

• Restricting the amount of fishing by either effort or catch management is one way of protecting fish stocks from becoming over-exploited or of encouraging the recovery of stocks that are depleted as a result of having been over-exploited in the past.

Input and output control measures1. Input controls or fishing effort management• Basic idea behind input control is to regulate “fishing efforts”.

Fishing effort =(number of vessels)x(catching power)x(intensity)x(days at sea)

Input controls include

1. Restriction of number of fishing boats

2. Restriction of number of fishing gears which exploit juveniles in the backwaters, estuaries and shallow inshore waters

3. Mesh size regulation

4. Minimum legal length for capture

5. Seasonal ban on fishing

6. Restriction of fishing areas

7. Marine Protected Areas

• For some fisheries, vessels may deploy a variable amount of fishing gear.

• In these cases the definition of fishing effort would also need to contain a factor relating to gear usage per vessel.

• In principle, input controls might also refer to limits placed upon other vital supplies of fishing such as the amount of fuel use allowed (energy conservation is desirable.

A . License limitation• The measures to limit inputs require some form of restrictive

licensing which will limit the total number of vessels engaging in a particular fishery together with their fishing power.

• It is also important that the restrictive licence records such characteristics as the size and engine power of the vessel that affect its ability to exploit fish.

ReAL fishing Craft• To prepare a National database for fishing vessels.• To prevent Illegal, unregistered and unreported (IUU) vessels in

the territorial waters.• To facilitate optimum utilization of the fisheries resources.• To strengthen coastal security.• To strengthen security of fishermen in the sea.

Problems in licence limitation • Selection of licence holder.

• Transfer of licence from one fisher to another.

• Larger loan repayment though work harder by fishing longer hours and in rougher weather.

• Licence holder try to maximize the fishing by improving the technology.

• No replacement restriction.

B. Reducing fleet capacity• In many cases licensing schemes have been adopted but over-

fishing has been occurred.• It is quite possible that technological advances in vessel and

gear design and improvements in fish-finding and navigation equipment may cause the over fishing.

This may be arranged in the following ways:• by removing vessels from the fleet• by making all vessels fish for shorter periods• by limiting the amount or size of gear that a vessel can

carry• by reducing the efficiency of fishing effort (e.g. by closing

areas where catch rates are high).

C. Limiting time fishing• Reducing fishing time may be arranged by imposing limits on the days vessels

may spend fishing.

• Once a vessel is over the horizon it may be difficult to check its precise activities.

• A vessel could be given a quota of days during which it might fish (interpreted usually as a number of days that it could not fish and had to be tied up in harbour). Such allowances might be transferable and traded between vessels.

• Other time at sea restrictions may be arranged with schemes such as no fishing on weekends.

D. Mesh size regulationThere are basically two reasons for regulating mesh size.• One is to conserve the spawning stock. • Increase the long-term sustainable yield.

Conservation of the spawning stock• If fishing effort is unregulated, there is a danger of a stock collapse,

due to a depleted spawning stock and a resultant recruitment failure.

• It is not regulate by fishing effort directly, an increase in mesh size may be a useful alternative means of conserving the spawning stock.

• A suitable choice of mesh size should reduce the rate of capture of juveniles, and make it more likely that an individual will survive to the size of first maturity and have an opportunity of spawning at least once.

Regulation of long-term yield

• Regulation of long-term yield is based on the concept of an “optimum harvesting strategy”.

• Some of the fish that escape through the larger meshes will be captured eventually and by then they will have had time to grow older and larger.

• This means that, out of a given number of recruits, the long-term effect of an increase in mesh size will be a decrease in the number.

• Provided the gain in weight, due to the growth of the individuals that happen to be caught, is greater than the loss in weight due to those that are not caught at all, there should be a long-term benefit.

• Even if the long-term effect of an increase in mesh size is beneficial, the immediate effect will involve a loss.

Mesh size regulation

Optimum mesh is key point in mesh size regulation • Long line “hook size”• Gill net mesh size• Trawl net ( Codend mesh size of trawl nets is regulated through Marine

Fishing Regulation Acts (MFRAs) of maritime states of India.)

Why square meshed nets

• The square mesh allow small fish to escape easily from the net without having to expend large amounts of energy trying to find an escape hole or route.

• This is important when trying to exclude small fish as they generally lack swimming speed and stamina.

• Small prawns, undersized fishes and small crabs, sea urchins, shellfish, etc are excluded from the square mesh codends as they simply fall through the large square meshes.

• Reduce vessel fuel costs because drag may be reduced as a result of the reduced weight and volume of bycatch that is towed around by the vessel and also because of square meshes remaining open through out the operation.

Impact of using small meshed nets

• Destruction of large quantities of juveniles thereby destroying future wealth

• Destruction of large amount of marine resources as bycatch and/ or discards which are of no way usefu to us.

• Fishery resource will run into extinction a subsequently increase poverty and rate of unemployment among fishing community.

• Destruction of turtles and other endangered animals• Increased fuel requirement

Practical Difficulties And Management Problems

• Demonstrating the effect of a change in mesh size.

• Determining the best mesh size for a fishery.

• Socio-economic problems.

• Quality of enforcement.

• Chafers and double cod end.

Limiting the efficiency and type of fishing gear• Fishing gear can be limited in size, type and number, and some

type of gear and fishing methods can be banned.

• Trawl net can be limited to maximum head line length. • Hook and line gear can be restricted to a maximum number of

hook per line.

• Gill net restriction to maximum length and hanging ratio. • Purse seine may disallowed to some pelagic fishery.

Fishing ban• Fishing can be banned either during particular time or seasons

(temporal closures) or in particular areas (spatial closures) or combination of both .

• It is the only instrument which is being carefully followed in the country.

• Maritime states along west coast (June15 – July 31) and east coast (April 15 – May 31) states and Union Territories are implementing closed season of 45 to 75 days.

• Main aim of fishing ban is Protect the spawners during peak spawning season.

• Reducing the fishing effort and giving respite to the benthic fauna from intense trawling are major reasons for seasonal closure of fishing.

• A closed seasons at the time recruitment can allow small individual to grow to a marketable size.

• Rotational closures (pulse fishing) is more useful strategy.

Marine protected Areas (MPA)

• Areas of fish spawning and feeding as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in which fishing is prohibited, allow rapid build-up of fish spawning stock biomass.

• The idea behind reserves is that if the fish are protected from fishing, they live longer, grow larger and produce an exponentially increasing number of eggs.

• It is observed that adult fishes tend to remain in the protected areas while their larvae help replenish adjacent fisheries

• Marine reserves in the Gulf of Mannar, Gulf of Kutch and Andamans are a right step in this direction.

State Banned period Type of fishing banned Type of fishing permitted

Gujarat 10 June- 15 August All craft Nil

Maharashtra 10 June- 15 August All craft Nil

Karnataka 15 June-10 Aug All except motorised Motorisedupto 25 hp

Kerala 15 June-31 July Mechanisedvessels />10 hp engine

All traditiona and motorised craft of OBM/ 10 hp engine

Tamil Nadu 15 April- 31 May Mechanisedtrawlers

All nonMotorized with less than25 hp engine

Andhra Pradesh

15 April- 31 May Trawlers and motorized craft more than 25 hp engine

Traditional less than 25 hp

West Bengal 15 April- 31 May Trawlers ,gill netters Nill

Orissa 15 April-15 June Trawlers and motorized more than 25 Hp

Traditional and motorized less than 25 Hp

Out put control measures

• Output controls are direct limits on the amount of fish coming out of a fishery.

• Obvious forms of output control are limits placed upon the tonnage of fish or the number of fish that may be caught from a fishery in a period of time.

Total allowable catch (TAC)• Restrictions on catches may take several forms, the most

obvious being the limit on the total catch.

• This may sometimes be in terms of numbers of fish but most usually total allowable catches are given in terms of tonnage.

• The intention of a total allowable catch is to restrict harvest rates to sustainable levels.

• Once a quota set for the fishery , fishers compete to secure a large personal catch before the overall catch quota reached and fishery closed.

• A TAC is estimated for the fishery and this is divided into individual quotas.

• ITQ means that less efficient fishers can sell part or all their quota to more efficient operator for the market price of the quota.

• Bag limits are a simpler form of catch limit designed to restrict certain types of fishery by limiting the numbers an individual person or vessel can catch during a short period, typically a day.

• Fishing season shorter• Fishing cost increase overcapitalized• Safety compromise• Boat maintenance minimum• Estimation of TAC

Minimum legal size

• Minimum legal sizes set the smallest size at which a particular species can be legally retained.

• The use of minimum sizes is still based on enhancing the value of the retained catch and protecting the stock.

• Minimum sizes can be used to assist in the control of two major problems in fisheries management, growth overfishing and recruitment overfishing.

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