Partnership Arrangement in Co-management: Inducing Efficiency to Overcome Adverse Conditions

• Main Authors: Uchida, Hirotsugu, Watanobe, Masamichi
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English; unknown
• Published: International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade
• Subjects: Fishery management; Fisheries; Fishery co-management; Fishery resources; Small-scale fisheries; Hokkaido; Japan; Co-management; Energy saving measures; Partnership arrangement; Sustainable fisheries; Walleye pollack; Coastal fishing communities; Fisheries Economics; Theragra chalcogramma
• Online Access: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/conference_proceedings_or_journals/p8418p14n

Adverse conditions hit particularly hard on small-scale fisheries and fishermen involved. Recent sharp rise in fuel cost is battering such fisheries already struggling from declining stocks and harvests. The threat of economical sustainability can potentially undermine the entire effort for achieving sustainable fisheries, and for this reason energy saving measures that can be adopted and affordable to small-scale fisheries are in urgent need. With this in mind, this paper investigates the management measures adopted by a group of coastal fishing communities in Hokkaido, Japan, targeting walleye pollack (Theragra chalcogramma). Faced with low stock level and surging fuel price, this group adopted a radical managerial measure that can be referred as partnership arrangement. Rather than permitting individualistic operations, as was the status quo, they adopted group-wide joint operations in aim to maximize the group's aggregated revenue, and each participant receives a predetermined share of the total revenue. This allowed the group to adopt various cost-saving measures, one being a spatially efficient allocation of vessels across the fishing grounds so as to minimize the vessels' traveling distance. The analysis shows that partnership arrangement had positive effect on both the total catch and revenue per unit of effort, through efficient use of gear (longline) and spatial allocation of effort to certain degree. This case study shows the possibility of managerial solution to challenges faced by a group of small-scale fishers or a fishing community.