Andrew Kitts

3 – A Framework for Monitoring and Assessing Socioeconomics and Governance of Large Marine Ecosystems1

This chapter has described a framework for assessing and monitoring the salient socioeconomic and governance elements of LMEs. The assessment and monitoring framework consists of 12 steps that, if applied, are expected to produce the essential information required for adaptive ecosystem management. The ecosystem paradigm is emerging as the dominant approach to managing natural resources in the U.S., as well as internationally. The shift away from the management of individual resources to the broader perspective of ecosystems has not been confined to academia and think tanks where it first began; it also is beginning to take root in government policy and programs. Many have advocated a new, broader approach to managing the nations natural resources. The approach recognizes that plant and animal communities are interdependent and interact with their physical environment to form distinct ecological units called ecosystems. The approach also recognizes that many human actions and their consequences, including marine pollution, extend across jurisdictional boundaries. This chapter presents a methodology for determining what is known of the socioeconomic and governance aspects—the human dimensions—of LME management. The chapter describes a basic framework for identifying the salient socioeconomic and governance elements and processes of an LME. Methods for monitoring and assessing the various elements and processes are also discussed in the chapter. There is description on the human dimensions of LMES, monitoring and assessment, applications of the monitoring and assessment framework, property rights entitlements and regimes for LME management, the structure of property rights entitlements in an LME, property rights regimes and management of LME resources. Property rights paradigm could be the framework necessary to design LME resource management policies for long-term economic growth and resource sustainability. Property rights establish the incentives and time-horizons for resource use and investment.

Cooperatives in US fisheries: realizing the potential of the fishermen's collective marketing act

The economic successes of recent quota-based harvest cooperatives in the Pacific Northwest and an Alaskan salmon marketing cooperative highlight the potential for more extensive forms of collective behavior afforded by the Fishermens Collective Marketing Act (FCMA) of 1934. Court rulings during the 1930s-1950s clarified what was considered anti-competitive behavior by fishermens groups, but the lack of controls on entry and harvests in the mostly open access fisheries undermined the full potential of the FCMA. With more fisheries now being managed by limited access and quotas, fishery cooperatives will be better able to share harvest capacity and/or profits, reduce costs, improve product quality, and negotiate prices.

Social Capital and the Success of Harvest Cooperatives in the New England Groundfish Fishery

Abstract In May of 2010 a new management system based on harvest cooperatives called “sectors” was implemented in the U.S. Northeast Multispecies Groundfish Fishery. Sectors are self-organized, self-managed groups of fishermen that receive annual catch entitlements. We hypothesize that the success and longevity of these sectors is likely to depend, in part, on the relationships amongst the members including their degree of trust and ability to collaborate. The value of these relationships and the ability to cooperate is commonly referred to as social capital. Prior to the implementation of the new sector system, we conducted a survey to derive baseline measures of social capital for individual groundfish permit holders and sectors. We construct indices of bonding, bridging and linking social capital, information sharing, and trust. We explore correlations between these social capital indices, characteristic of the vessels in the sectors, and various measures of economic performance of sectors. JEL Classification Codes: Q22