Are Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) sufficiently large

TLDR: 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.

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.

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.