Are Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) sufficiently large

TL;DR: Empirical evidence from the TURFs deemed too small suggests that complementary management tools can enhance TURF performance when natural or social constraints prevent the construction of T URFs of optimal size.

About: This article is published in Marine Policy.The article was published on 2017-04-01 and is currently open access. It has received 16 citations till now.

Summary

1. Introduction

• Territorial use rights in fishing provide one or more fishermen with exclusive access to particular fishing grounds.
• The relationship between specific TURF characteristics and performance is poorly understood.
• Theory suggests that for TURFs to successfully enable the social conditions that lead to sustainable harvests, fishermen should have the necessary security in the exclusivity of access [39] .
• Previous efforts [46] have looked at the theoretical effects of TURF size on yield, showing that larger TURFs should decrease the spillover of adults and larvae to surrounding areas and thereby create greater incentives for TURF owners to take actions that enhance longer term yields.
• Two potential reasons for this discrepancycooperation and imperfect informationare explored, thereby identifying important areas for extensions to current TURF design theory.

1.1. Case studies

• The case studies were selected from the three largest existing systems of TURFs -México, Japan and Chile (Fig. 1 ).
• In all cases, attention was restricted to TURFs currently in operation.
• The analysis examines species that are the main target of the TURFs and therefore the main drivers of their design.

1.1.1. México

• The study is focused on The Pacifico Norte fisheries and fishing cooperatives, located along the northern part of the Pacific side of Baja California Sur as well as Cedros and Natividad Islands.
• These cooperatives form part of a larger federation and were granted exclusive fishing zones in 1992 [22] .
• The TURFs provide the cooperatives with exclusive access for 20 years (with the possibility of renewal) to several resources.
• Spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus, Palinuridae) and abalone (Haliotis fulgens, Haliotidae) are the most economically important [22] .
• The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified the sustainability of the spiny lobster fishery in 2004 [21].

1.1.2. Japan

• Two different TURF systems from Japan were analyzed: the walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma, Gadidae) TURFs in the Hiyama region, located around southwestern Hokkaido island, and the sakuraebi (Sergia lucens, Sergestidae), TURFs in Suruga Bay, central Japan.
• The TURFs in the Hiyama region corresponds to the exclusive fishing grounds (or sections) of the Nishi and Esashi-Kaminokuni cities.
• This region is the main spawning ground for the northern Japan Sea stock of walleye pollock.
• The TURFs in Suruga bay provide exclusive access to the sakuraebi, a meso-pelagic shrimp [20] that appears to be sedentary in this region.
• The TURFs belong to the Yui Harbor Fishery Cooperative Association (FCA) and the Ohigawamachi FCA.

1.1.3. Chile

• TURFs were included in Chile's legal framework for the management of benthic resources in 1991, and they have been key in recovering collapsed fisheries.
• Studies have found a dramatic increase in abundance and individual size of targeted species compared to open access areas [16] .
• Currently Chile has 707 TURFs in different stages of operation.
• The analysis is focused on TURFs that manage loco (Concholepas concholepas, Muricidae) one of the most economically important resources for artisanal fishermen [7] and the main driver of the creation of TURFs system [16] .
• Operative TURFs ("estado operativo") were identified using data from SUBPESCA [43] .

2. Methods

• The two patch bio-economic model from White and Costello [46] was applied to each of the case studies.
• In the model, the patches (i and j) represent TURFs that are owned by fishing cooperatives, each of which perfectly coordinates its harvest decisions within the TURF, allowing it to act as a single agent.
• Separate the effects of larval dispersal and adult movement, two scenarios were examined.
• The kernels were estimated using the model of Siegel et al.
• Fig. 2 shows the levels of spillover resulting from different sizes of TURFs for each species.

3. Results and discussion

• TURFs are the only TURFs in the first category with respect to the dispersal capacity of green abalone.
• These theoretical projections suggest the biomass of abalone should trend upward, but the high levels of expected spillover in the Mexican (for spiny lobster), Japanese and Chilean TURF systems should (a) increase competition among TURFs leading to a race to fish, and (b) compromise biomass and yields.
• Still, although with the available information it is not possible to calculate how far all these systems are from MSY in practice, several lines of evidence suggest that TURFs help avoid both the race to fish and compromised yields in the case studies analyzed.
• In Chile (Fig. 4E ) landings have remained constant after the creation of the first TURFs in 1997, and biomass has increased since TURFs became the only source of legally landed loco in 2001 [42] .

Case study

• Proportion of larvae exported (c) sharing and stewardship [11, 27] .
• In Suruga Bay the cooperatives have developed an income pooling arrangement that has helped this fishery become one of the most profitable in Japan [38] .
• In Chile, although some cooperation among TURFs exists [7] , it is unlikely that it will solve the spillover problem for two main reasons.
• Therefore, although cooperation and catch limits may be resolving many problems associated with spillover in several settings, the success of TURFs in the face of extensive larval dispersal into areas of open access fisheries, such as the case studies from Chile, remains unresolved.
• First, fishermen may not be aware of the effects of larval movement.

4. Conclusion

• The expected effects of fish dispersal capacity on yields suggest that the analyzed TURFs are small relative to both adult and larval movement.
• In some cases, this spillover and its consequent incentives for fishermen behavior may be driving overharvesting.
• In several other settings small TURFs may still be successful because of inter-TURF cooperation.
• Ignoring such complications can lead to a poor understanding of these systems and therefore lead to inefficient designs.
• As such, further development and extension of these models is warranted so that they can play a more important and beneficial role in guiding decisions on marine spatial planning.

Figures

Fig. 1. Location of the case studies analyzed in this study.

Fig. 4. Historical landings (dark blue lines), stock biomass (light blue lines), and year of legal TURF creation (solid grey vertical lines) for all case studies. Landings and stock biomass measured in thousands of tons. For loco (E) the dashed vertical line indicates when TURFs became the only source of legal landings.

Fig. 3. Effect of spillover on yield. Effects of larval dispersal (solid lines) are separated from the effects of adult movement (dotted lines). Black dots represent the actual average TURF size for each case study. Bars show the range of TURF sizes within each system.

Table 3 Proportion of larvae that move outside of the TURF (c) based on the rounded average TURF size of each case study.

Fig. 2. Proportion of larvae exported for each species if managed using TURFs of 0– 100 km of along shore length. Diamonds show the actual level of larval spillover based on the rounded average TURF size of each case study.

Table 1 TURF systems analyzed in this study.

Table 2 Life history parameters corresponding to the species targeted within each of the TURF systems analyzed.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What have the authors contributed in "Are territorial use rights in fisheries (turfs) sufficiently large?" ?

This study explores the expected effects of existing TURF sizes on yields for TURF systems in Chile, México and Japan. These analyses suggest that either existing models of TURF performance are incomplete or that there is significant scope for improved performance with altered TURF designs. Considering these alternatives, empirical evidence from the TURFs deemed too small suggests that complementary management tools can enhance TURF performance when natural or social constraints prevent the construction of TURFs of optimal size. 

Q2. What is the main hypothesis to reconcile these mismatches?

One hypothesis to reconcile these mismatches between predictions and practice is that cooperation among TURFs may account for the better than expected performance of these TURF systems. 

Q3. What is the role of TURFs in the management of small-scale fisheries?

The successful management of small-scale fisheries is often achieved by co-management arrangements [8,12], requiring a strong capacity for self-organization [17,28]. 

Q4. What is the main focus of the analysis?

The analysis is focused on the resulting Nash equilibrium, highlighting the consequences of competitive behavior expected to result from high levels of spillover (see [46] for further details). 

Q5. What is the role of TURFs in fisheries management?

By securing exclusive access to marine resources, TURFs can enable the conditions necessary for the development of successful co-management schemes [16, 17, 30, 39]. 

Q6. What is the history of territorial use rights in fishing?

They have existed for centuries in many coastal areas around the world and have been shown to be successful as a form of access right, particularly for small-scale fisheries [16, 29, 44]. 

Q7. What is the effect of larval export on future yields?

Since larval export only affects future yields, and the delay can be quite substantial for slowly maturing species, the perceived costs may be greatly discounted relative to the immediate costs of adult dispersal. 

Q8. How much biomass is available for Chilean TURFs?

Since biomass calculations are not publicly available for Chilean loco, it was assumed that the assigned TAC [42], which is calculated in monitoring efforts in each TURF [16], represents 25% of the biomass. 

Q9. What is the main reason why fishermen may not be aware of the effects of larval movement?

A lack of knowledge about larval dispersal may reduce the resulting incentives for overharvesting since, by ignoring the connection with outside areas, fishermen might not feel the need to rush for fish. 

Q10. What is the effect of larval dispersal on fish?

Since the model explored here does not include age structure in the fish population, the impacts of larval dispersal have no lag and therefore may be greatly overestimated. 

Q11. What is the main difference between TURFs and other fisheries?

Previous efforts [46] have looked at the theoretical effects of TURF size on yield, showing that larger TURFs should decrease the spillover of adults and larvae to surrounding areas and thereby create greater incentives for TURF owners to take actions that enhance longer term yields.