Abstract
The European Union Common Fisheries Policy has established a discard ban, which states that fish below a reference size cannot be sold directly for human consumption. In a fishing effort-regulated fishery, the discard ban can result in extra handling, storing and landing costs. In an output-regulated fishery, this policy might also limit the effort levels as all the catches count against the quota. In both cases, this regulation can reduce the economic performance of the companies, even in single-species fisheries. A possible solution is to increase the mesh size, thus retaining fewer small individuals. To study this option, a bioeconomic simulation of a change in the gear selectivity from 100- to 120-mm minimum mesh size (MMS) was performed. The results show that the private perspective (profits) does not change. Furthermore, due to the lower retention of 120 mm MMS, the efficiency of a fishing day was reduced by 5% and 2.5%, from the point of view of capital and labour productivity, respectively. In contrast, gross revenues increased by 1.5% and crew compensation by 2%. Given a societal benefit of this change in the mesh size, this gain could be re-distributed to provide an incentive for selectivity improvements.
Highlights
Discards are defined as the proportion of the total organic material of animal origin in the catch that is thrown away or dumped at sea, for whatever reason (FAO 1996)
This is because the selectivity change only affects 8% of the hake catches
The increase in the minimum mesh size (MMS) from 100 to 120 mm did not have a significant impact on the stock biotic potential
Summary
Discards are defined as the proportion of the total organic material of animal origin in the catch that is thrown away or dumped at sea, for whatever reason (FAO 1996). Article 15 of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) (EU 2013) bans discards, at least partially. This discard ban has been called the landing obligation (LO): within a predefined time frame, all the catches of stocks subject to a total allowable catch (TAC) regulation must be landed. Fish under a minimum conservation reference size (MCRS) cannot be used for human consumption. Such fish can only be sold for fish meal, pet food or other products not destined for direct human consumption. The length distribution of a given species in the catch is related to the fishing gear and its technical selectivity characteristics (Hovgård and Lassen 2000). Catching undersized fish is the result of a mismatch between the selectivity of the gear and the MCRS and can occur even in highly species-selective fishing activities
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