Since COVID… I’m a desk consultant (something I never thought I will be), so turned my work to policy analysis, research and “ground-truthing”. So I get e-mails emails from academia, NGOs and philanthropic orgs in regards to plans and jobs they want to do, and ask for my appraisal. This is something I’m fully thankful for (as some of those gigs are paid) … it occurred to me that I could put a couple of ideas “out there” of studies that could help a lot my “operational” work (if it was to resume one day).
planning and improvising are key in fisheries
Is all based on my experience working in the field and dealing now with the policy side… not that I need more work thankfully… yet is stuff that I’m quite passionate about and we don't have the research needed to justify many operational decisions that need to be made.
So If anyone has funding to work on any of these potential studies? Happy to be involved… yet unfortunately I cannot do it for free as I’m self-employed and sell my time to eat…
Now if some of you is going to pursue any of these ideas as part of your academic work… Then on an “honesty box” type approach… let me know and have me as a co-author at least, please…
The role of port agents in the WCPO PSM process
Very little information has been captured so far on Vessel Agents in the WCPO on the whole, which is perplexing especially for a group that is so influential in the movement and vessels and product. In some situations, MCS staff from fisheries administrations are dependent on vessel agents for facilitating access (both literally in terms of getting to the vessel and operationally in terms of timings) to vessels for inspection, thereby removing the independence and autonomy of the administration and their regulation of the industry.
Agents across the region vary in their backgrounds and associations with the vessels, some are independent, others relate to the traders, some to vessel operators or business conglomerates onshore. Most agents are foreign nationals and not Pacific Islanders, but this is not the rule.
In some cases, agents are quite close and familiar to the fisheries administrators, since they interact with them on a constant basis. Yet they can be quite opaque in their accessibility, even if they have fundamental information that can be of benefit for the authorities and fisheries economists.
Currently, in the Pacific, these vessel agents fill a need, but it is a self-perpetuating need, and more work needs to be done to formalise the role through licensing, or remove these agents from the vessel reporting requirements that are so pivotal to CDS and PSM.
I do believe there is a substantial need to investigate the options for an ideal structure to close the gaps around vessel agents which would be potentially based on two options: either their formalisation or the removal of the use of vessel agents as a reporting intermediary.
The policy-related operational and policy implications of both scenarios have not been explored
This an area I love to investigate…
Fisher’s labour rights baseline risk evaluation in DWFN
Everyone is rightfully working on the labour area… and I just finished co-writing a paper with some heavyweights for marine policy in fundamental human rights protections in fisheries operations from land to sea by clarifying what is legally established in international law and what is not and the obligation to demonstrate human rights due diligence is a legal and operational one and not aspirational. As well as presetting the example of the labour conditions on FFA’s HMTCs
So that job is on “what should be done corner”, and then on the other, you have some like the one I recently wrote about that relate to using AIS to determine the risks for about based on some indicators (I was a bit critical of that one)… Yet I’m not opposed to the use of “indirect” assessments (to give them a name) yet we need to start from “flag state based risk-weighted” baseline.
In my opinion, there are a couple of very basic indicators that are directly linked to labour abuses and are attached to flag state requirements
The basic responsibilities of flag States are those set out in Article 94 of the 1982 Convention, which requires a flag State to effectively exercise jurisdiction and control over ships flying its flag and to take measures to ensure safety at sea. Measures to ensure safety at sea must be taken with respect to construction, equipment and seaworthiness of ships; manning of ships, labour conditions and the training of crews; and the use of signals, maintenance of communication and prevention of collisions.
So one that I would like to do is to a risk matrix associated with that give us a “ranking” of “permeability” to labour abuses by the flag state. And for that, I would start with distant water fishing nations that operate in the High seas (aka ABNJ) since what happens there is the ultimate responsibility of the flags state (coastal state have some, yet limited powers, on the issue)
So my idea is to:
Identify the Flag states operating in more than 1 RFMO/HS basin
Determine if these flag states:
Are the crewing agents regulated by the flag state? all private crewing agencies must be regulated and provide an efficient, adequate, and accountable system that protects and promotes crew employment rights.
Requires working visas for foreign crew? since working visas are associated to a series of conditions, of which a contract and some minimal qualification are fundamentals. Countries like Vanuatu or the US would require a business visa if you go there as a consultant to help their government, yet somehow they allow crew to be working board their vessels (who are extensions of their territory) without Immigration and labour even knowing who they are?. Same with CN, Korea and Taiwan to a certain extent. Even 20 years ago, I got a working visa for a friend to specifically come and work on NZ flagged fishing boast here in NZ. He was this way cover by NZ legislation even if he was fishing in the High Seas.
Does the flag state have legislation covering labour conditions for fishers and or a fishers union?
In many countries, you cannot work on a fishing vessel if you don’t have access to the Union, which has a say on payments conditions and minimal requirements on board or even a minimum number of nationals on board (i.e. Japan, Philippines, Argentina). Yet the US, for example, requires only one (the paper captain to be a US citizen, everyone else working on US-flagged Purse Seiner do not even have work visas for the USA, therefore is not covered by the Unions
Determine the number of references to crew labour abuses in the media, news, government investigations, etc associated with vessels from that flag
Working all this data in a matrix, with the appropriate statistical analysis can give a great starting point to assess baseline risk, being all other variables equal…. So “indirect measures” can start from somewhere.
The assumption of linearity and a fisher’s “vision” incentives filter for policy and research
This one is not on the practical side…. And relates more to the other career I would love to have studied (if I didn't have to worry about what to eat while studying it) Philosophy and Epistemology
The assumption of linearity… I know that in science cause and effect are part of the cloth in which we think.
As said I’ve been doing a lot of “ground-truthing” for different organizations, where well-intended scientists try to figure with stuff in fisheries happen or not happen, by assuming linearity around vessels behaviours for example… yet is not the vessel that behaves in certain ways, is the skipper, or various skippers over the fishing year…. And each trip has a massive set of variables that may justify a vessel doing scenario A or scenario B for a not particularly preconceived reason, rather than that was it then…
Happened very often that I get sent some question for a scenario and I send 17 back so I can adjust in my head all the variables that are associated to the decision that I will take as a skipper.
The thing is that if you want to build a model to predict behaviour with a certain amount of precision… you’ll need to build a model so big and so complex that would not be too different from reality…
So instead why we don't focus on researching incentives for the trigger certain behaviours?
I always said, that the easiest way to predict behaviours in fishers is the same as in anyone else, and is by critically asking “what is in there for me?” Before any option and way before making any assumptions.
Fisherman are natural risk managers… because your life LITERALLY depends on being good ta that (and even so more fishers die every year than in all other primary production industries combined – estimated 35000… one every 15 minutes) as such my key motivators are to: “earn more money or to spend less”.
I wish we could study “hypothetically for now” what fisheries-related policy and research would look like if we were to apply that initial “filter” prior to embark on work that applies to fishers
So If anyone has any good idea on how to tackle this one… I’ll love to be involved in any study doing this (even for free or to get another post-grad)
you always looking ahead as a fisherman… where the next feed will come up