Elsevier

Ocean & Coastal Management

Volume 117, November 2015, Pages 43-51
Ocean & Coastal Management

Confronting the implementation of marine ecosystem-based management within the Common Fisheries Policy reform

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.03.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We analyse the specific measures foreseen in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

  • CFP is moving towards EBM but it does not state clearly at which level it incorporates ecosystem concerns.

  • Social aspects are not clearly defined in the CFP and compensability is likely to involve this dimension.

  • We recommend the definition of appropriate objectives and adequate thresholds for the social dimension of fisheries.

Abstract

This paper confronts, by meta-synthesis of the literature, the definition of ecosystem-based management provided in the reform of the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) with the specific measures and the institutional framework foreseen in it.

By analysing the reform of the CFP by means of the ecosystem-based management framework, we conclude that there is a lack of instruments to deal with the social sustainability objective while economic and ecological sustainability could be simultaneously achieved with the specific measures considered in the reform.

Individually analysed, the specific measures could further benefit ecosystem-based management implementation, although not all the observed or analysed consequences of the implementation of these measures move in this direction. In that sense we conclude that the success of the ecosystem based management of EU fisheries depends much more on the specific implementation of the measures and on the accompanying incentives, which in the end, implies that the institutional and political settings will determine its success.

Introduction

The new European Union (EU) Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which took effect on 1st of January 2014 proposes a new general framework to manage EU fisheries. In that sense it is widely seen as an opportunity to incorporate and internalize the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management.

The CFP Reform Regulation defines the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management as “… an integrated approach to managing fisheries within ecologically meaningful boundaries which seeks to manage the use of natural resources, taking account of fishing and other human activities, while preserving both the biological wealth and the biological processes necessary to safeguard the composition, structure and functioning of the habitats of the ecosystem affected, by taking into account the knowledge and uncertainties regarding biotic, abiotic and human components of ecosystems” (EU, 2013b). This definition implies ensuring that benefits from living aquatic resources are high while the direct and indirect impacts of fishing operations on marine ecosystems are low and not detrimental to the future functioning, diversity and integrity of those ecosystems. This definition merges the “approach” and “based” concepts. According to Garcia et al. (2003) “approach” implies taking ecosystem considerations into more conventional fisheries management while “based” has been seen as giving environmental considerations pre-eminence over socio-economic and social ones. The mixture of both concepts can be confusing and so we will consider the strongest one, Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management (EBFM), in this study. The main reason for this EBFM is to contribute to the good environmental status (GES) (EC, 2010) in conformity with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) adopted in 2008 (EC, 2008b) in which fisheries are considered as a descriptor and a pressure.

References of the ecosystem-based management can be found since the seminal papers of Odum (Odum, 1969, Odum, 1977). Furthermore, a series of recent papers have been dealing with this issue. In, for example, Jennings and Rice (2011), the main impediments to adopting EBFM are analysed while in Gascuel et al. (2012) possible implementations of EBFM are given. In order to complement this recent research the main aim of this work is to show how the current CFP can be analysed by means of the EBFM framework and if the specific measures contained therein will lead to greater integration and cooperation within the fisheries sector and with the MSFD.

Among the various aspects of EBFM clear priority is given to the ecological dimension over the economic and social ones as this provides the basis for economic and social well-being (Murawski et al., 2008). The maintenance of ecosystem structure and function is given priority in order to obtain benefits from ecosystem services, the most obvious in terms of EBFM being the provisioning services (Curtin and Prellezo, 2010). Acknowledging that ecosystems are complex adaptive systems (Folke et al., 2004, Norberg, 2004) where regime shifts can occur once ecosystem states pass tipping points, underlines the importance of incorporating the precautionary principle,1 adaptive management2 and subsidiarity3 into the management of fisheries. From the socio-economic aspect, EBFM requires the view that humans are an integral part of the ecosystem and not external to it (Grumbine, 1994). The integration of all stakeholders involved in the fishery in its management is prioritized in order to build trust, cooperation and give legitimacy to the management process (Berghöfer et al., 2008). Property rights regimes aim to improve the behaviour of resource users by giving them more of a sense of ownership of the resource and hence to exploit it in a more responsible manner. The three regimes of group property, individual property and government property have been categorized in contrast to the open access state (Ostrom, 1999).

The CFP focuses strongly on multiannual plans as the main tool to preserve marine biological resources and to achieve the sustainability objectives. According to the European Commission (2012) these plans are defined by a management goal for fish stocks and a roadmap for achieving this objective. The plans may contain specific conservation objectives and measures based on the ecosystem approach and in the case that specific conservation measures are required they must be based on the ecosystem approach. However the CFP remains unclear on how to deal with the incorporation of these specific conservation measures and objectives in a practical manner.

The aim of the paper is to analyse if the specific measures foreseen in the CFP are compatible with the EBFM and/or to what extent contradictions can be found. The specific measures analysed are the objectives of the CFP, regionalisation, the landing obligation, maximum sustainable yield (MSY), and transferable fishing concessions (TFC). The paper pays specific attention to the three pillars of sustainability, the ecological, economic and social ones, and foresees potential compensability between these three pillars from the definition and interpretation that the CFP has on EBFM. Hence, a subsequent objective will be to detect which dimension(s) is (are) likely to compensate the others.

Section snippets

Methodology and structure of the paper

The methodology of this paper is meta-synthesis of the literature, in where specific measures of the CFP are individually analysed and a relationship with the EBFM is identified. The papers and reports selected to be part of this paper all contain at least one specific measure and refer to some aspect of the EBFM related to this specific measure.

Following from the sections on individual measures proposed in the reform the paper discusses the results obtained and makes recommendations in order

Sustainability objectives and social concerns

European marine legislation such as the MSFD or the Water Framework Directive (EC, 2000), has been developed in order to protect and restore ecological quality or integrity, within estuarine, coastal and offshore systems. The main objective of these legislative measures and policies is to maintain a good status for marine waters, habitats and resources, delivering an integrated ecosystem-based approach (EBA).

Sustainability is the dominant theme of MSFD and sustainability in fisheries

Regionalisation

Management at the appropriate scale is a fundamental objective of EBFM (see Rosenberg (2006) and Curtin and Prellezo (2010), among others). Subsidiarity, where decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen, delimits the actions of the EU to only those areas where the MS cannot sufficiently achieve their objectives due to scale effects (EC, 2008a). However, due to the scale of the CFP, management has been centralized to a very high degree. The reform of the CFP will promote this

Maximum sustainable yield

The concept of Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) has a long tradition as a guide to fisheries management worldwide from the early works of Schaefer (1954) (1957). However this approach is subject to great uncertainty and has been criticized for ignoring the multidimensional nature of fisheries (Larkin, 1977).

Within a unique dimension in which the MSY is included (the ecological one) one could argue that MSY would require that all species be exploited below their MSY abundance and therefore that

Landing obligation

Due to the importance given to ecosystem structure and functioning in order to maintain essential ecosystem services EBFM requires the minimization of all human impacts that could negatively affect these characteristics/attributes (Halpern et al., 2008). The associated discards of bycatch species have been identified as a threat to ecosystem structure and functioning in a variety of ways. They can have direct negative ecological effects on target species and non-target species, large indirect

Transferable fishing concessions

The disincentives that arise from badly defined property rights have been identified as a serious problem that should be corrected alongside the introduction of ecosystem-based management (Garcia, 2005, Pikitch et al., 2004). These disincentives include the race to fish and a short-term vision of the fishery, where long term planning and constraint on the part of the fisher only benefits the ‘free-rider’ fishers.

The main aims of ‘rights based’ management (in which TFCs are included) are to

Discussion

Regarding sustainable objectives of the reform of the CFP our discussion goes in line with that of Jennings and Rice (2011) in that the adoption of an EBFM could be used to argue that the environmental objectives should have primacy. Furthermore, as pointed out in Borja et al. (2011) the development and implementation of EBFM should be aimed at the conservation of the marine ecosystems. Such an approach should include protected areas and should address all human activities that have an impact

Concluding remarks

The specific measures considered in the CFP reform are positive or ambiguous in their effect and hence in their ability to impulse the implementation of EBFM within European fisheries.

Regionalisation is a big step towards all these objectives. In fact, the CFP anticipates tools to incorporate the regional perspective, such as the multiannual plans. In this context ACs and fisheries administrations will be closer and more sensitive to the regional problems. This is a positive development and

Acknowledgements

This work has been funded through a research project by the Department of Environment, Territorial Planning, Agriculture and Fisheries of the Basque Government. R.P also received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement MYFISH no289257. We wish to thank Angel Borja (AZTI) and Katrine Soma (Wageningen University) for kindly advising us on some details of previous drafts. We also acknowledge the helpful comments made by two anonymous

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