Annotated Bibliography: Fisheries Indicators
On indicators in general:
1.
Garcia, S.M. and D.J. Staples. 2000. Sustainability reference systems and
indicators for responsible marine capture fisheries: a review of concepts and
elements for a set of guidelines. Mar. Freshwat. Res. 51:385-426
A review on concepts and elements of indicator systems that could be helpful in
developing responsible capture fisheries according to the FAO Code of Conduct for
Responsible Fisheries. Sustainability frameworks are discussed for developing and
grouping indicators, and criteria (e.g. Pressure-State-Response) that could be used to
measure and monitor progress towards sustainability are presented. Tools for linking
indicators to management actions and involving stakeholders are also given.
2.
Raakjær Nielsen, J., P. Degnbol, H. Hovgaard, and S. Reeves. 2001.
Indicators as a basis for robust and acceptable fisheries management. Regional
Technical Consultation on Indicators for Sustainable Fisheries Management in
ASEAN Region.
Challenges to modern fisheries management (e.g. necessary knowledge-base, expense,
lack of legitimacy among stakeholders, complexity of systems, etc.) are presented as
impetuses for shifting fisheries management from predictive model-based to indicator
based. Criteria for successful and valid indicators are presented and justifications for
using indicators, especially in developing countries, are given.
On size-based indicators:
3.
Froese, R. 2004. Keep it simple: three indicators to deal with overfishing.
Fish and Fisheries 5:86-91.
Three sized-based fisheries indicators are presented: percentage of mature fish in catch,
percentage of ‘optimum-length’ fish in catch, and percentage of ‘mega-spawners’ in
catch. These indicators are proposed as simple means through which to involved
stakeholders and the public directly into fisheries management, enabling them to put
pressure on the fishing industry to stop destructive practices. These indicators have been
applied to three fish stocks to show they are useful in indicating stock health and the
corresponding sustainability of its fishery.
4.
Myers, R. A., and G. Mertz. 1998. The Limits of Exploitation: A
Precautionary Approach. Ecol. Appl. 8(Supplement):S165-S169.
A model is used to demonstrate the safety benefits of prohibiting the harvesting of
juvenile fish, demonstrating that it is important to control gear selectivity (traditionally,
selectivity is regarded as fixed when the biological limit to harvesting is estimated). The
model shows that allowing all fish to spawn at least once before they are captured will
prevent a collapse of the fished stock, even if fishing mortality targets are exceeded.
5.
Piet, G. J., and S. Jennings. 2005. Response of potential fish community
indicators to fishing. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 62:214-255.
The responsiveness of indicators such as fishing effort, slope of the biomass spectra,
mean weight and mean maximum length and biomass indices to differences in fishing
effort around the North Sea were studied. It was shown that many indicators didn’t show
direct connections with changes in fishing effort, rather that differences observed
between the fish communities may have been more from environmental conditions and
historic fishing regimes. However, mean weight and mean maximum length did show
consistent responses to differences in fishing effort.
On “Ecosystem” indicators:
6.
Christensen, V. 2000. Indicators for marine ecosystems affected by fisheries.
Mar. Freshwat. Res. 51:447-450.
The fishing-in-balance (FIB) and Odum’s 24 attributes for describing the state of an
ecosystem based on its maturity are explored. The FIB describes the effect of ‘fishing
down the food web’ by relating the tropic level of a catch to the biomass of the landings.
Using the default that 10 of energy from one trophic level is transferred to the next, the
fishery is ‘in balance’ when catch levels increase by a factor of 10 as the average TL of
the fishery is reduced by one. The FIB index is applied to fisheries in the Gulf of
Thailand and the North Atlantic to show different trends in relationship to different levels
of ecosystem degradation resulting from overfishing.
7.
Cury, P. M., L. J. Shannon, J.-P. Roux, G. M. Daskalov, A. Jarre, C. L.
Moloney, and D. Pauly. 2005. Trophodynamic indicators for an ecosystem approach
to fisheries. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 62:430-442.
As part of research aimed at furthering the ecosystem approach to fisheries, six
trophodynamic indicators (catch or biomass ratios, primary production required to
support catch, production or consumption ratios and predation mortality, trophic level of
the catch, fishing-in-balance, and mixed trophic impact) were selected for trial
application to the northern and southern Benguela ecosystems. These indicators were
selected because of their ability to reveal ecosystem-level patterns, and because they
match published criteria. Results show that trends in indicators are sensitive to the choice
of trophic level made for certain species and that trophodynamic indicators appear to be
conservative because they respond slowly to large structural changes in an ecosystem.
On indicator systems or “scores”:
8.
Anonymous. 2005. Overfishing Scorecard. The Ocean Conservancy.
www.oceanconservancy.org/site/pageserver?pagename=scorecard
The Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit group that works with regional and federal fishery
councils in the US toward managing fisheries responsibly, produced a first 'scorecard' to
compare the sustainability of different US fisheries. Sustainability is represented on a
percentage scale called 'success scores' (100% being best). They evaluated the use of
'best management practices' (e.g. are stocks assessed, is there overcapacity, are catches
below targets, is bycatch monitored, etc.), and whether there is current overfishing taking
place and if the stock had been overfished in the past. They presented the scores of
several coastal fisheries in the US by region and by individual fishery, showing that,
overall, the North Pacific region is currently being managed best and the Caribbean
worst.
9.
Caddy, J. F. 2002. Limit reference points, traffic lights, and holistic
approaches to fisheries managment with minimal stock assessment input. Fish. Res.
56:133-137.
A 'traffic light' approach to assessing whether a fishery is within the acceptable
boundaries of its biological reference points in order to apply 'holistic' management
measures is discussed. Several indicators of fishery sustainability are assigned either red,
yellow or green depending on whether they are inside, close to, or far outside acceptable
limits. Then management measures, such as closing the fishery, are proposed based on
how many red, yellow and green lights there are for said fishery.
10.
Pitcher, T. J., and D. Preikshot. 2001. RAPFISH: a rapid appraisal technique
to evaluate the sustainability status of fisheries. Fish. Res. 49:255-270.
RAPFISH, a multi-disciplinary rapid appraisal technique for comparing the sustainability
of fisheries, is presented. RAPFISH uses ordinations of ecological, sociological,
economic and technical attributes (indicators) to a fishery in statistical analyses to arrive
at an overall sustainability percentage (100% being best). This percentage can then be
used to compare various fisheries or a single fishery at various points in history. It is also
possible using this approach to disentangle the factors with the most influence on the
sustainability score and which aspects of the fishery are better or worse.
On community involvement and small-scale fisheries:
11.
Martin-Smith, K. M., M. A. Samoilys, J. J. Meeuwig, and A. C. J. Vincent.
2004. Collaborative development of management options for an artisanal fishery for
seahorses in the central Philippines. Ocean Coast. Manage. 47:165-193.
Development of management options for a data-poor small-scale fishery for seahorses in
the Philippines developed in collaboration with stakeholders is presented. Among many
other findings, authors demonstrate that management by no-take zones and minimum size
requirements are highly accepted among stakeholders, while TACs and restricting fishing
effort are only moderately accepted.
12.
Tawake, A., J. Parks, P. Radikedke, B. Aalbersberg, V. Vuki, and N.
Salafsky. 2001. Harvesting Clams and Data. Conservation Biology in Practice
2(4):32-35.
Example of community management and monitoring of an intertidal clam fishery which
was previously overfished is shown. Authors demonstrate how enforcing a “tabu” (notake zone) dramatically increased the size and abundance of clams inside and outside the
tabu area and how community members with little training were able to collect and
analyze data reliably and accurately.
13.
Wilson, J. A., J. M. Acheson, M. Metalfe, and P. Kleben. 1994. Chaos,
complexity and community management of fisheries. Mar. Policy 18:291-305.
Authors take the view that the lack of success of fisheries management based on stock
recruitment models arises from the complex and likely chaotic nature of fisheries. They
argue therefore, that feasible management must address the relatively stable parameters
of fisheries systems — habitat and basic biological processes, and that this demands
management attention to the fine as well as the broad scale attributes of the system. The
need to minimize information costs also suggests an emphasis on decentralized,
community-based approaches to management is most appropriate.
On reference points:
14.
Botsford, L. W., A. Campbell, and R. Miller. 2004. Biological reference
points in the management of North American sea urchin fisheries. Canadian
Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 61:1325-1337.
Review on sea urchin fisheries management with emphasis on North America. Authors
assess various approaches to management in the context of biological reference points.
They indicate that the implementation of a limit reference point based on lifetime egg
production would be desirable for fishery management of this kind of invertebrates.
15.
Caddy, J. F. 2004. Current usage of fisheries indicators and reference points,
and their potential application to management of fisheries for marine invertebrates.
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 61:1307-1324.
The author provides an overall review of the use and application of indicators and
reference points in management of fisheries resources. He emphasizes the importance of
monitoring a range of ecosystem and fishery characteristics, and the need for integrate
multiple indicators and limit reference points into harvest rules and other decisional
infrastructure. Two approaches are mentionated: the various driving forces-pressurestate-impact (DPSIR) frameworks and the traffic light approach (TL).
16.
Fogarty, M. J., and L. Gendrom. 2004. Biological reference points for
American lobster (Homarus americanus) populations: limits to exploitation and the
precautionary approach. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
61:1392-1403.
A review on applications to date of biological reference points (BRPs) for American
Lobster populations in the United States and Canada. They examine the underlying
conceptual foundations of the BRPs applied to lobster, explore important sources of
uncertainty in the determination of limit BRPs, and describe cases where risk analysis has
been used to cope with uncertainty.
17.
Hilborn, R. 2002. The dark side of reference points. Bull. Mar. Sci. 70(2):403408.
Problems that have arisen in the practice of developing sets of standard reference points
to be used to determine allowable harvests are discussed. The author shows that
uncertainties in current stock biomass, the inappropriateness of reference points applied
to species for which they were not derived, and the tendency of reference-point use to
produce an environment in which stock-assessment scientists rarely evaluate alternative
management practices are major reasons why management based on reference points is
not working. He advocates using data-based approaches to management (e.g. simple
indicators) instead of model-based approaches, and also presents a need for improving
marine governance to provide incentives for stakeholders to encourage and participate in
sustainable fishing.
18.
Orenzans, J. M. (Lobo), C. M. Hand, A. M. Parma, J. Valero, and R.
Hilborn. 2004. Precaution in the harvest of Methuselah´s clams – the difficulty of
getting timely feedback from slow-paced dynamics. Canadian Journal of Fisheries
and Aquatic Sciences 61:1355-1372.
A retrospective analysis of age-frequency distributions of geoduck stocks that addresses
the issue of slow-paced dynamics, through exploration of trends and patterns in
recruitment. These authors recommend a management approach relying on stock
monitoring and data-based feedback rather than on model-based reference points because
of the magnitude of recruitment variability and the sedentary nature of adults.
19.
Seijo, J. C., and J. F. Caddy. 2000. Uncertainty in bio-economic reference
points and indicators of marine fisheries. Mar. Freshwat. Res. 51:477-483.
Authors assert that in order to account for natural variability and other sources of
uncertainty in fish populations, estimates of appropriate fishery bio-economic indicators
are needed in order to re-evaluate fisheries periodically and establish new reference
points and corresponding management strategies. This paper concentrates on this aspect
of the management process. Authors present a classification of indicators in accordance
with the’ level, change and structure’ framework. Alternative approaches to deal with risk
and uncertainty in data-limited (e.g. developing countries’ fisheries) contexts are also
discussed.
20.
Smith, S. J., and B. Sainte-Maire. 2004. Biological reference Smith, S. J., and
B. Sainte-Maire. 2004. Biological reference points for invertebrates fisheries:
introduction. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 61:1303-1306.
Review of seven papers published in the volume 61 of the Canadian Journal of Fisheries
and Aquatic Resources. These papers were presented in a workshop on biological
reference points for invertebrate fisheries held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, from 2 to
5 December 2002. The papers show new methods and concepts to determining reference
points for invertebrate species that are tied to specific aspects of their life history.
21.
Smith, S.J., and P. Rago. 2004. Biological reference points for sea scallops
(Placopecten magellanicus): the benefits and costs of being nearly sessile. Can. J.
Fish. Aquat. Sci. 61:1338-1354. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
61:1325-1337.
The authors show that “boom-and-bust” patterns of sea scallop abundance can be
explained by the interaction of spatial patterns of habitat quality, distribution of fishing
effort, and dispersal of larvae among patches. According to these authors, such spatial
patterns are essentials for the development of appropriate biological reference points and
management policies to prevent overfishing in sedentary, aggregated species. Their
results suggest that incentives to concentrate fishing effort in lower productivity areas
may be an effective tool for reducing recruitment variations and improving yields.