Nascent Developments in Arctic Fisheries: Managing the Red King Crab in the Barents Sea

• Main Authors: Kaiser, Brooks, Kourantidou, Melina, Fernandez, Linda
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English; unknown
• Subjects: Seafood > Marketing; Aquaculture > Economic aspects; Seafood industry > Congresses; Fishery management > Congresses; Barents Sea; Paralithodes camtschaticus; Red king crab
• Online Access: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/conference_proceedings_or_journals/8p58pj46n

The paper seeks to identify bioeconomic patterns and processes with respect to the Red King Crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus) in the Barents Sea. Its dual role (as invasion and market commodity) together with the dynamically evolving Arctic marine environment requires pro-active and multi-faceted approaches. Challenges and uncertainties include data limitations, scientific disagreements, conflicting incentives, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, indicating the need for acquiring a better understanding of the current situation and the potential implications of a new management regime. Impacts of the crab invasion can be indeed elusive, granted the uncertainty about the baseline of Barents Sea benthic productivity and the large temporal and spatial scale. Examples of debated impacts include those on soft benthic bottom fauna ecosystems as well as on other commercial stocks of the Barents (capelin, lumpsucker, Chlamys islandica). These are creating acute concerns, also for nations and stakeholders in the affected ecosystems other than Norway and Russia who have direct management of the stocks in their waters. The management challenge is complicated by marked differences in perceptions of net gains and damages when moving east to west. In the Western Barents, external costs hold higher value due not only to greater interspecific competition and greater exhibited preferences for environmental quality, while harvest (market) benefits also differ as functions of regulatory and investment decisions in harvest technology and governance limitations. The movement of the crab to the west leaves the effects of further spread primarily under Norwegian management, creating more differences in management incentives. Proceedings of the Eighteenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, held July 11-15, 2016 at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Center (AECC), Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.