Memorandum by Álvaro Fernández,
Biologist Oceanographer, Fisheries Scientific Adviser, Spanish
Institute of Oceanography
I. POLICY ON
THE MANAGEMENT
OF FISHERY
RESOURCES IN
EC WATERS
1. The EC's fishery resource policy is based
on two regulations that were not approved until 1983, due to the
major difficulties planted in the way of approval by the member
countries.
2. These two basic regulations are Regulation
170/83 and Regulation 171/83. The former is the framework by which
all policy on the management of fishery resources in waters of
Member State sovereignty and jurisdiction has since been guided.
It is based on, for a start, the establishment of technical measures,
such as the mesh size of fishing gear, the minimum landing sizes
of fish (and crustaceans and molluscs), the proportions of catches
of certain species when small mesh is used, areas and/or seasons
closed to fishing, etc.
3. Regulation (EC) No 170/83 moreover bases
its policy for the management of fishery resources in Blue Europe
on the supervision of total effort by means of the introduction
of the TAC system ("TAC" stands for "total allowable
catch") and the establishment, after arduous discussions
among the member countries, of the distribution of these TACs
into catch quotas or shares for each country, using the oft-invoked
principle of relative stability as the reference point. In order
to arrive at the formula for distributing TACs, the Commission
and the then-member countries took the catch statistics of the
previous years as the basis for their discussion, using said statistics
as the "relative needs" of the different States' fishing
fleets. In the successive revisions of the UE management fisheries
policy, this TACs and quotas system was maintained (Reg. 3769/92
and 2371/2002).
4. The application of this system thus calls
for a number of phases of study and discussion. The first, to
determine the annual overall catch for each stock of each species
of fishery importance. In the objectives of the science of fishery
management, finding a TAC is simply an indirect method of supervising
the fishing effort, and this parameter, along with mesh size (fundamentally
in trawl fishing), is basic in regulating a fishery.
5. The priority objective of these ICES
scientific working groups is to evaluate the stock or stocks in
question in order to ascertain their fishing exploitation rate.
The mathematical models of population dynamics in use in these
groups indicate the demographic structure of the marine population
and its development over the years, the biomass of the population
and its spawning stock, as well as the development of annual recruitments,
or waves of juveniles joining the stock each year. Lastly, they
indicate the population's mortality rate due to fishing (by age
class and total), which is a direct consequence of the fishing
effort targeting that particular population and the selectivity
of the fishing gear used. Ultimately, these evaluation results
indicate the fishing exploitation rate. A mortality rate due to
fishing that is higher than that needed in order to achieve the
maximum sustained yield (or that corresponding to precautionary
biological reference points) leads to yearly catches that are
lower than the possible catches, and the stock is overfished.
To correct the situation necessitates lowering the mortality rate
due to fishing by reducing the fishing effort, which is the direct
instigator of the fishing mortality rate.
6. From what has been said, it may be gathered
that, in order for these working groups to be able to meet their
objectives, there is a series of conditioning factors that must
be met, and yet those very conditioning factors often render the
working groups' objectives unfeasible. For example, there must
be catch statistics that accurately reflect the real situation;
a size-sampling programme at ports so that the annual catch can
be estimated in terms of the number of fish caught per size class;
teams to research the growth of species, who can in addition make
it possible to ascertain the annual catch in terms of the number
of specimens per age class and moreover make headway in our knowledge
of aspects of these species' biology such as sexual maturation,
fertility, feeding, geographical distribution, selectivity, effort
and areas of recruitment or spawning.
7. On the quality and quantity of this information
will the reliability of the results of the attempted evaluation
models depend. In the best of cases the current mortality rate
due to fishing is found analytically, and according to this result
further endeavours are made to draw nearer to the optimum rate,
or to the level of precautionary approach. If that cannot be done,
the development of catches, output figures, recruitment figures,
etc, is analysed and an attempt is made to provide some guidance
concerning fishing exploitation.
8. The procedure ends when ICES recommends
a TAC to the EU Commission.
II. A CRITIQUE
9. Let us analyse what we consider this
system's defects to be, based on the following points:
1) The basis of what are termed "precautionary
TACs".
2) The possible statistical distortions caused
by the quota system.
3) The concept of quota ownership by Member
States.
4) The problem of TACs and quotas in mixed
or polyspecific fisheries: demersal fisheries.
10. 1. As stated in the first chapter, precautionary
TACs are set for those species or stocks for which either the
statistical data are not good or research has not reached a sufficient
level of development ("sufficient" meaning that research
has been conducted over enough years to form a minimum historical
series) so that evaluations can yield valid results.
11. In our opinion this system is flawed
at its foundations. The objective of this type of fishery management,
according to the precautionary approach principle, is to keep
the fishing effort stable so that no increases will adversely
affect the condition of fishing stocks (a condition not yet determined,
by the way). The stocks at issue, then, are stocks for which there
is no evidence whatsoever of overfishing, and nevertheless the
system of TACs distributed into quotas, by using the system established
by the relative stability principle, means that countries that
comply with the objective of not increasing their effort, or even
reduce their effort, consume their share before the year is out
and have to stop fishing or else return to the sea all catches
of the species whose quota has been filled.
12. We conclude this point by stating that
there appears to us to be no easy justification for forcing a
fleet to give up fishing a species that is not overfished and
has not been the target of increased effort. At least with the
objective of optimising catches in hand.
13. 2. The TAC and quota system itself can
lead to statistical distortions, which have an effect on evaluations.
When we described the system for conducting scientific evaluations
of stocks, we emphasized the need for the base data to be reliable,
since research institutes' fish size- and age-sampling programmes
have got to be applied to catches by species, area, month and
fishing-gear type. In this sense, potential temptations to declare
underestimated figures when the quotas are low (eg, cod, haddock,
mackerel), or overestimated figures when the quotas are too high,
or to shift figures by areas or even by species (eg, mackerel/horse
mackerel) would lead to erroneous total catches and biased evaluations
whose results would not reflect reality, thus leading to incorrect
management recommendations (TACs). Such supervisory defects really
do occur, as already shown, more that 20 years ago, by the Commission's
communication to the Council (17-6-86) on the execution of common
fishery policy, and more recently, the strong 2007 report from
the EU Court of Auditors. This can lead to a dynamic process that
is quite undesirable in terms of meeting the objectives of rational
management of fishery resources. In this sense, the ICES complains
frequently of national statistics' reliability for scientific
use.
14. 3. Thirdly, the established principle
of "relative stability" poses another disadvantage for
compliance with the theoretical objective of TACs. Indeed, the
purpose the oft-invoked principle pursues is to keep the relative
fishing capacity of the Member States steady from year to year,
so that any possible reductions or increases in TAC are passed
on to the Member States in the pre-established proportions. As
years go by, some countries develop such that their quotas become
too large for their real needs, and others, such that their quotas
lag behind their capacities. The Commission's communication to
the Council of 3 November 1986 makes this clear. The solution
envisaged in EC regulations is confined to the terms addressing
this point in article 5 of Regulation 170/83, which reads, "Member
States may exchange all or part of the quotas in respect of a
species or group of species". The practical application of
the system leads to a concept of "quota ownership" by
countries. If countries that need supplementary quantities have
nothing to offer in exchange that the countries with a quota surplus
want, the countries with shortfall must stop fishing, and the
end-of-the-year TAC is not entirely consumed. The system of management
by total catch does not, then, in this sense either, meet the
objective of keeping the fishing effort stable or even reduced
to a certain level. It is even a contradiction of the very definition
of TAC (total allowable catch), because the concept of quota ownership
may prevent the total potential catches of a stock from ever actually
being made.
15. This concept of ownership, too, is a
very peculiar sort of ownership. It appears that a country can
own, say, a thousand tons of cod that are swimming freely through
the ocean depths, and can fish them or swap them to another country
for another species. But if the year reaches its end and the country
in question has not caught all its quota (for lack of capacity
or lack of interest) and has not exchanged its leftover quota
(for lack of agreement in bilateral negotiations), on 31 December
it loses its property and the fish remain in the sea as an unconsumed
portion of the TAC, available for re-allocation the following
year.
16. Again we must say that the system, which
is supposedly designed to optimise catches, prevents the catches
that at the start of the year were originally found possible (one
might say "economically recommendable") from ever being
made. The stumbling block is the fishery management procedure
itself.
17. 4. But the most irrational point in
our view is the application of the system of TACs and quotas by
species to mixed or polyspecific fisheries. We refer to bottom-trawled
fisheries, where the very fishing system used means that the species
caught together are several and the commercial species making
the fishery profitable are several. Therefore the fishing method
cannot be said to seek a single target or objective species, as
the seine, longline or gillnet does, or as occurs in tuna fisheries.
When a bottom-trawled fishery contains no component species whose
fishing condition is especially sensitive, when the appropriate
mesh size for the fishery has been determined, and when the fishing
effort is supervised, the system of TACs and quotas should not
prevent the normal exercise of the fleet's fishing activity.
18. This is not what actually happens, though.
Sometimes due to defects in the area and species statistics used
as the basis for finding TACs, and sometimes due to the allocation
of TACs in quotas for the Member States as a result of political
negotiations (eg, EEC-Spain Treaty) or in response to commercial
undertones (meanly States that have entered EU after 1985), the
quantities assigned to each country in each area bear no relationship
to the reality of fishery biocenosis nor to the authorised fishing
effort of the fleets involved.
19. Nowadays, and since many years before,
the fishery management system leads to the absurdity of having
to return to the sea tons of specimens, even large-sized ones,
of species of great commercial interest that are not overfished
but whose catching cannot be avoided because they live alongside
other species. Thus, the country does not exceed its quota, but
the scientific objective of preventing a certain level of stock
mortality due to fishing is not reached, because the country can
continue to fish the other species that live alongside the filled-quota
species. The filled-quota species thus would be caught and dead
but could not be landed.
20. To wind up this chapter we will say
that the current system of fishery resource management in the
EC does not seem very often to meet the objective expected of
it for rational resource use. At least sometimes the system more
closely resembles a method designed to create added hindrances
for the exercise of fishing activities and to uphold certain economic
interests of countries, thus leading to bilateral negotiations
where national positions are unyieldingly defended.
III. AN ALTERNATIVE
21. The type of model to be employed in
fishery management should actually depend on the objectives that
are to be pursued. In this sense, we believe that the objectives
expressed in the recitals of Regulations (EC) No 170/834, 3760/92
and 2371/2002 are perfectly valid. Let us recall, inter alia,
the end of the first recital:
"... it is therefore desirable that the
provisions of Council Regulation (EEC) No 101/76... be supplemented
by the establishment of a Community system for the conservation
and management of fishery resources that will ensure balanced
exploitation".
And article one, which reads:
"In order to ensure the protection of fishing
grounds, the conservation of the biological resources of the sea
and their balanced exploitation on a lasting basis and in appropriate
economic and social conditions, a Community system for the conservation
and management of fishery resources is hereby established. For
these purposes, the system will consist, in particular, of conservation
measures, rules for the use and distribution of resources, special
provisions for coastal fishing and supervisory measures."
22. The alternative that we propose is based
more on rationalising resource management and avoiding what we
have called "added hindrances to the exercise of fishing
activities" than on defending national catch-rate rights.
In this sense, we believe that, although the relative activity
of fleets must be respected, the system must be flexible enough,
one, to permit it to absorb differential evolution among the fleets
of the different countries (the countries' percentages would not
have to be unchanging over many years), and two, to make it possible
also for the annual catches of each country, with a certain fishing
effort, to oscillate from one year to another according to variable
factors such as fishable biomass, species catchability, variation
in target species, etc.
23. In this sense, we ought to recall the
reflections in our first chapter, where we described the fishery
evaluation methodology. One of the final results was to find the
mortality rate due to current fishing and its relationship with
either the optimum mortality rate or the precautionary approach
mortality rate for rational resource exploitation. In practice
scientific recommendations (ICES, ICCAT) tend to consist in finding
the percentage by which the mortality rate due to current fishing
ought to be modified, which actually means changes in fishing
effort.
24. The fishery administrator (DG Fish)
can meet this objective by supervising the fishing effort, which
is, furthermore, the factor that directly causes fish mortality.
When the effort aimed at a stock or at a fishery is known, that
effort can be adapted according to recommendations; and where
reductions are necessary, those reductions can be distributed
proportionally among the countries that have been fishing in the
fishery in question, according to their approved fleets' capacities
or their fishing efforts authorised in recent years. A system
of temporary fishing licenses related to fishing days allowed
could ensure compliance with the level set for total fishing effort,
for supervisory purposes. Log-books, VMS control and electronic
log-books would help to attain this objective.
25. In mixed fisheries, such as demersal
fisheries, where several species of commercial interest are fished
together, finding the total fishing effort and distributing it
by countries, plus regulating mesh size and minimum fish size,
should be enough to permit the Member States' fleets to engage
in their fishing activity. Scientific working groups and advisory
committees for fishing management are perfectly able to consider
the exploitation condition of the species that make up the fishery,
or base themselves on the species that displays the highest mortality.
But once the fishing-effort level has been determined, regulations
should not lead to the absurd extreme of having to return to the
sea adult fish whose stock is not overfished, as happens now.
26. The idea, then, would be to replace
the current type of supervision (based on TACs and their distribution
in the form of quotas) with supervision of the fishing effort
itself, shared by countries, by means of a generalised system
of fishing licenses by stock or by fishery (indicating fishing
days allowed), and fleet census permanently updated:
27. When the mortality rate due to current
fishing cannot be found, a "precautionary" total fishing
effort could be set, based on fleet activity in recent years.
28. The system would have the great additional
advantage of not prompting possible biases in statistics, since
the fleets would not have catch ceilings. Instead, with a given
authorised fishing effort, fleets could land all the captures
made throughout the year in compliance with technical measures
on mesh size, fish size and percentages.
29. That would certainly have a favourable
repercussion on the reliability of evaluations of the condition
of the population and of the scientific management recommendations,
and the process outlined above would form part of a more realistic
scheme.
30. Furthermore, ships authorised to fish
could distribute their effort throughout the entire year instead
of stopping all fishing when their quota is reached, as they do
now. Suffice it to recall that the fishing effort depends on two
factors. The first is "fishing power", which depends
on the fleet and its characteristics; the second is "fishing
time". Reductions of the latter per ship lead to reductions
in the rate of mortality due to fishing, which -together with
the requirement of minimum mesh sizes and minimum landing sizes,
as well as marine protected areas- would be our objective in order
to recover over-exploited fisheries.
31. At all events, even if the TAC and quota
system is maintained, there are still issues of the current regulation
that in our opinion ought to be changed, for the sake making management
measures more easily understandable to fishermen too.
32. We mean to say, when a TAC is found,
it is recognised that a total capture of that size can be made.
But if, in the distribution of quotas according to the principle
of relative stability, the resulting quota for a country is too
low for its catch capacity, and the quota for another country
or countries is too high for any reason (evolution of fishing
capacity, change of fisheries or target species, changes in market
demands, etc), the imbalance arising from the situation can only
be offset through the quota exchange system. One result could
be that the country with the shortfall has nothing of interest
to offer the country with the surplus quota, with the final result
that the former has to stop fishing and the TAC is never reached.
Another community policy in resource management, one that would
be more rational in the optimum exploitation of resources, could
certainly be to look for a formula to indicate that, when the
evolution of catches throughout the year predicts a situation
such as that described, the countries that have a shortfall can
continue fishing until the TAC is exhausted.
33. In layman's terms, it would go something
like, "Tell me where, when and what mesh size I can fish
with, but let me land my whole catch of fish as long as they're
bigger than the permitted minimum size".
34. The current system, under which fleets
must throw overboard commercially important specimens legally
fished in combination with other species for which there is a
quota, does not seem to meet objectives of rational resource exploitation.
35. In summary, we may say that in our opinion
the policy of EC fishery resource management is laced tightly
within a number of very rigid corsets that contrast with the very
changing, flexible, dynamic and sometimes unpredictable activity
of the sea itself and the fish we take from it. The bad thing
is that this has a negative affect on member countries that have
contributed their waters to Blue Europe. As we said, strict supervision
of fishing effort, mesh size, minimum fish size and marine protected
areas could meet the same objectives.
Abstract
36. The work describes the contents of the
two basic regulations and additional provisions adopted by the
Community, to continue with a critical analysis of EEC's fisheries
policy in such points as: the base of the so-called precautionary
TACs; the potential statistical distortions caused by the quota
system; the concept of quota ownership by Member States; and the
problem of TACs and quotas in mixed or polyspecific fisheries,
especially demersal fisheries. Finally, an alternative is proposed
on the basis of rationalising resource management and avoiding
"added hindrances to the exercise of fishing activities"
in front of the defence of catch quotas by the Member States.
37. The author defends direct supervision
of the fishing effort made by each Member State in each fishery
(ships per fishery, fishing days per ship and year) and technical
measures of conservation (minimum mesh size, minimum gear size,
areas of time and space closed to fishing, minimum landing sizes,
etc). The point would be to tell ships' masters where (in what
areas), how many days and with what means (meshes, gear sizes,
etc) they can fish, and to permit them to land everything they
catch under those conditions (except for illegal sizes). The mortality
rate due to fishing would be supervised by delimiting the fishing
effort directly (ships and days per country and fishery). As a
consequence of the system, statistics (the reliability of ships'
logs), scientific evaluations of stocks and fishery management
recommendations would be improved. It would certainly be a much
wiser fishery resource management policy for the fishing sector
in general, and supervision of stocks would also be much closer
to reality.
End note
38. This article is based on another article
by the same author, published in 1988 (1). We congratulate ourselves
upon the fact that since then other, more authoritative pens have
questioned the TAC and quota system as the cornerstone of the
European Union's fishery resource management policy. Mike Holden,
who applied the policy for many years at the Commission's DG XIV,
criticized it harshly after his retirement (2). The Green Paper
on the Future of the Common Fisheries Policy does likewise in
point 3.1.2, "The Causes of Current Management Deficiencies"
(3). Michel Sissenwine and David Symes (4) also analysed this
problem in 2007 in points 4.2. Scientific Information, 4.6. Impediments
to Fisheries Management Under the CFP and 6.3. Move Toward Effort
Management. Lastly, the devastating report of the European Court
of Auditors in late 2007 (5) denounces very clearly that the TAC
and quota system is not working effectively in the policy on management
of the EU's fishery resources and generates major statistical
defects.
39. Nevertheless, in the above-cited Green
Paper the Commission sees no possibility of a alternative to the
TAC and quota system (point 5.1.4.1.) and consequently no alternative
to the principle of relative stability. Despite this, Council
Regulation 2371/2002, the basis for the current PPC (6), clearly
states the alternative of management by catches or by direct fishing
effort: Recitals 7 and 9, Article 4.2 f, g and especially Article
20.1, which reads, "The Council, acting by qualified majority
on a proposal from the Commission, shall decide on catch and/or
fishing effort limits and on the allocation of fishing opportunities
among Member States as well as the conditions associated with
those limits. Fishing opportunities shall be distributed among
Member States in such a way as to assure each Member State relative
stability of fishing activities for each stock or fishery."
40. But it seems clear that in this issue
the economic and commercial interests of the Member States prevail
above the rationality of fishery management and exploitation.
Consequently, the answer to the question formulated in the title
of this article, is, in our opinion, "No".
References
(1) Fernández, A. Valoración crítica
y alternativas a la Política Comunitaria de Gestión
de Recursos Pesqueros. Revista de Estudios Agro-Sociales. Ministerio
de Agricultura Pesca y Alimentación. N 144. 1988.
(2) Holden, M. The Common Fisheries Policy: Origin,
Evaluation and Future. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.
1994.
(3) Green Paper on the future of the CFP. European
Commission Com (2001) 135
(4) Sissenwine, M. and D. Symes. Reflections
on the Common Fisheries Policy. Report to the General Directorate
for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs of the European Commission.
July 2007.
(5) European Court of Auditors. Special Report
No 7/2007 on the control, inspection and sanction systems relating
to the rules on conservation of Community fisheries resources.
(and Press Release ECA/07/35). 2007.
(6) Council Regulation (EC) 2371/2002 of 20 December
2002 on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries
resources under the Common Fisheries Policy.
22 February 2008
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