Fishery essentiality: A short-term decision-making method based on economic viability as a tool to understand and manage data-limited small-scale fisheries
Small-scale fisheries (SSFs), usually overlooked and marginalized in policy processes, play an important role in contributing to food security, nutrition, livelihoods, and local and national economies. As conventional fisheries assessment is not valid for SSFs, this study puts forward several mathem...
| Published in: | Fisheries Research |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10508/16098 http://hdl.handle.net/10261/324426 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2021.106171 |
| Summary: | Small-scale fisheries (SSFs), usually overlooked and marginalized in policy processes, play an important role in contributing to food security, nutrition, livelihoods, and local and national economies. As conventional fisheries assessment is not valid for SSFs, this study puts forward several mathematical indices to numerically qualify the state of certain SSFs. We have developed a new concept of ‘essentiality’, which measures the relative importance of certain species from an economic perspective. In the framework of fishery essentiality, SSFs boats are conceptually replaced by Artisanal Fishing Units. The time dedicated to the capture of a species, the number of units that fish it, and the economic yield obtained from the sale of the catch: Frequency, Fleet Recruiting and Income, define essentiality. We have set out an overall index of essential capacity for the whole fishery. Estimating the essentiality of a fishery allows us to comparatively characterize different fishing communities, and the data-limited SSF manager has the option of introducing management measures to change the behaviour of the fishery and move towards a situation of greater essentiality, and therefore, of greater economic viability. This in turn leads to a reduction in the pressure that is focused on a limited number of specific fishing resources. The essentiality of a fishery is a plausible alternative method of assessment and management of a fishery to the traditional evaluation methods used for industrial fisheries. SI |
|---|