Beatriz A. Roel

Management procedures in a fishery based on highly variable stocks and with conflicting objectives: experiences in the South African pelagic fishery

The pelagic fishery in South Africa targets mainly anchovy, Engraulis capensis, and sardine, Sardinops sagax, both of which have varied substantially in abundance during the history of the fishery. Since 1988, there has been progress in this fishery towards the use of management procedures as the basis for determination of management regulations, where a management procedure is defined as a set of rules, derived by simulation and normally implemented for three to five years, specifying how the regulatory mechanism is set, the data collected for this purpose and how these data are to be analysed and used. Advantages of management procedures include formal consideration of uncertainty, the ability to choose decision rules based on their predicted medium-term consequences and a saving in workload compared with annual assessments.This paper discusses the lessons learned in application of management procedures and their precursors in this fishery. The high variability in abundance of the two stocks, the trend in their relative abundance, the substantial uncertainties in information, strong pressure to meet socio-economic goals and the conflicting objectives which arose between the directed anchovy and directed sardine fishery are identified as major problems in implementation of procedures and management of the resources. However, the use of management procedures is considered to have led to greatly improved communication with the industry and to substantial input by them into the management process. The procedures and the simulations upon which they were based also enabled consideration of the major sources of uncertainty in understanding of the resource dynamics and facilitated the development of procedures that were robust to them.It is argued that biological uncertainty greatly exacerbated the problems in application of the procedures but probably cannot be markedly reduced in the near future. Management procedures must be robust to likely variability and uncertainty. Of equal importance are identification and selection of achievable objectives, and allocation to the political decision makers and not to the scientists, of responsibility for determining acceptable trade-offs between conservation and socio-economic goals. Other issues, including the importance of long-term rights and allowance for flexibility in fishing practice, are also highlighted

Cephalopod fisheries: A future global upside to past overexploitation of living marine resources? Results of an international workshop, 31 August – 2 September 1997, Cape town, South Africa

Management strategies for cephalopod fisheries present similar challenges to those encountered in fisheries for finfish. Peculiarities of cephalopod life cycles and the fact that cephalopod fisheries can benefit from management experiences gained in other fisheries may help to preclude mistakes and management failures. During a three-day workshop, features of cephalopod biology, recommended areas of research and key conclusions for management were identified and points of differences between cephalopods and fish were highlighted. Among these, life-cycle understanding, spatial distribution, stock-recruitment relationship and age determination/growth studies were identified as key priorities for research. Physiological and genetic approaches to understanding basic aspects of the life cycle, and their importance for understanding population dynamics, were stressed. Similarly, theoretical ecology has a role to play in management, e.g. the role of a spatial distribution strategy in survival. Environmental studies are also emerging as being important in the possible prediction of population trends through links that operate at the level of spawning biology. In the interim, cephalopods can be managed using similar principles to those applied to short-lived fish species. Among these, constant proportion harvest strategies were identified as the most effective.

Impact of the fishery for late-larval European sardine (Sardina pilchardus) on the adult stock in the Adriatic Sea

Impact of the fishery for late-larval European sardine (Sardina pilchardus) on the adult stock in the Adriatic Sea Piera Carpi*, Elisabetta B. Morello, Andres Uriarte, Monica Panfili, Beatriz Roel, Alberto Santojanni, Fortunata Donato and Enrico Arneri National Research Council of Italy ISMAR, Marine Sciences Institute, Largo Fiera della Pesca, Ancona, 60125, Italy Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, CEFAS, Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33 0HT, UK Fundaci on AZTI, Herrera Kaia, Portualde z/g, Pasaia 20110, Spain *Corresponding author: tel: þ44 15025 24447; e-mail: piera.carpi@cefas.co.uk Present address: Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, AdriaMed Project, FAO-FIRF, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome 00153, Italy