Abstract
Fishery management is a complicated task that often results in overfishing, overcapacity, and low profits for the industry. The management of shared fish stocks is particularly problematic, especially if national authorities pursue different objectives. Multi-species fisheries add further complexity to the problem. It is no accident that management tools frequently used in Northern Europe, such as total allowable catches and individual quotas, are not applied in the Mediterranean Sea, where more target species are caught simultaneously. However, the European Commission intends to introduce a market-based driver for a strong, profitable fishing industry by phasing in transferable fishing concessions . This management approach is new for the Mediterranean, and it requires in-depth examination at institutional, legal, and economic levels. In this paper, after a review of the institutional setting, the economic perspective was analyzed by estimating the production function for the Italian small pelagic fishery in the Adriatic Sea. With the addition of Croatia to the European Union, the Adriatic Sea can become a Mediterranean communal exclusive fishing area. The results indicate that output measures such as total allowable catches and individual quotas should not cause serious discarding problems for this multi-species fishery.
Highlights
The European Commission (2011) intends to reform the Common Fishery Policy (CFP) to introduce a market-based driver for a strong, profitable fishing industry by phasing in transferable fishing concessions that are based on catch or effort management systems
We estimated the production functions for the fisheries of anchovies and sardines and built a graphical tool to establish the number of days at sea that permits the maximization of the value added
The results provide concrete elements of reflection to prepare new management tools for the Adriatic small pelagic fishery
Summary
The European Commission (2011) intends to reform the Common Fishery Policy (CFP) to introduce a market-based driver for a strong, profitable fishing industry by phasing in transferable fishing concessions that are based on catch or effort management systems. This instrument, if applied to the Mediterranean Sea, will require a new kind of partnership between countries that share fish stocks. This means estimating the production function for every species involved This knowledge establishes possibilities and limits for the management of stocks that cannot be fished independently
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