Comparison of financial performance of Japanese and Australian small scale tuna longline fisheries

Abstract

Two small scale tuna longline fisheries, the Japanese Small Offshore Tuna Longline fishery (SOTL) and the Australian Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery (ETBF) have much in common, including: gear, target species and the relatively small scale entities, whereas they have large differences in their respective management strategies (the ETBF is output controlled whereas the SOTL is input controlled) and the distance between the point of catch and the point of landing (SOTL fishes far beyond Japan's EEZ, ETBF concentrates within Australia's EEZ). This study focuses on the financial performance of the SOTL and the ETBF between 2011 and 14. The ETBF performs better on financial performance compared to the SOTL but has a higher “per hook fishing cost” due mainly to lower fishing effort (i.e. number of hooks) deployed. This contrasts with the situation pertaining in a previous bio-economic model study of longline tuna fisheries in the WCPO. Periodic updates of the “per hook fishing cost” will enable improvements of accuracy of the bio-economic modelling. We conclude that better catch rate and less fuel consumption compared to the SOTL is the primary reason that the ETBF performs better profitability. We assumed that the rights-based controls including Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) under the Total Allowable Commercial Catch (TACC) of the ETBF supports to maintain a higher catch rate and lower fuel consumption compared with the SOTL where resource rights are not allocated to vessels. This analysis lends weight to suggestions that an appropriate rights-based allocation system will improve profitability of tuna longline fisheries.