I have been going on about harvest control rules for a while now (I started to work on them back when I was in FAO ROME in 2009) and had a go in December last year at the “scaremongering” driven by the MSC, and some of their lobby groups are way more about their fear of losing money and their relevance in a world that is starting to see beyond their business model rather than the long-term SKJ sustainability and actually accused them of being quite colonial when pointing fingers FFA, PNA & SPC that have been working on this for a long time, and look at the HCR form their perspectives as the owners of tuna in the region and the main interested one in the biological but as well social sustainability of the resource.
Hence, I had a very interested look when I read the title of this new paper, and smiled when I realized that the main author is my friend and colleague Kate M. Barclay, (whom I admire and have been honoured to collaborate in the past), as well as Megan Bailey and a cast of thousands from Wageningen University.
Furthermore is a Ghoti paper, which is my favourite type of paper in the Fish and Fisheries journal.
Their take is in for suggesting that social issues should be brought into HCRs for two reasons:
First, fisheries policy objectives are usually a combination of biological objectives (such as healthy marine ecosystems) and socio-economic objectives (such as fleet profitability, sustaining coastal communities). Even simple socio-economic objectives, such as fleet profitability, may be used to determine optimal fisheries policy. Currently, most of the effort and skills of fisheries scientists and managers goes into determining total allowable catch (TAC) in relation to biological criteria. Putting one or more quantifiable and relevant social considerations centrally into the analysis for decisions about catch will lead to better alignment with socio-economic objectives.
Second, by making socio-economic objectives implicit rather than explicit the legitimacy of policy and management risks being undermined. Social HCRs (sHCRs) could enable trade-offs between social and biological objectives to be made explicit and feed into pre-defined mechanisms, including compensation or allowing continued fishing in recognition of social benefits, or phased approaches to fisheries reform.
Over the long term, introducing sHCRs could be part of moving management beyond assumptions that biologically sustainable fisheries will inevitably lead to generalised societal benefits, and instead make explicit social benefits and losses for particular groups within society on the basis of specific management strategies.
It is an interesting take and one that makes you shift perspectives and see things from a different angle, and in my (surely not relevant) opinion, that is always a good thing.
As usual, read the original (is for free), I quote the abstract and conclusions below.
Abstract
Fisheries are supposed to be for the benefit of society, producing food, providing livelihoods and enabling cultural continuity. Biological productivity goals for fish stocks operationalised through Harvest Control Rules (HCRs) are central to contemporary fisheries management. While fisheries policies often state socio-economic objectives, such as enhancing the livelihoods of coastal communities, those are rarely, if ever, in- corporated into operationalised management procedures. The lack of articulation of social objectives and lack of monitoring of social outcomes around HCRs amounts to poor public policy. In this article, we explore the potential for social HCRs (sHCRs) with reference points and agreed predefined actions to make the social dimensions of fisheries explicit. sHCRs cannot cover all social dimensions, so should be considered as one tool within a broader framework of fisheries governance. Moreover, successful sHCRs would require sound deliberative and participatory processes to generate legitimate social objectives, and monitoring and evaluation of fisheries management performance against those objectives. We introduce two potential types of sHCRs, one based on allocation of catch within biological limit reference points, and one for when fishing exceeds biological limit reference points. The application of sHCRs, we argue, can fos- ter accountability and help avoid non-transparent negotiations on size and distribution of the catch. Our proposal is a call to action for policy makers and fisheries managers to properly integrate social criteria into fisheries governance, and for both biophysical fisheries scientists and social scientists to do better in practical collaboration for methods and knowledge development to support this integration.
CONCLUSION
Our call for sHCRs does not replace bHCRs. Instead, building on systems already established for biological management, we argue that sHCRs can be one element in improving fisheries management by making social objectives and impacts explicit and requiring fishery managers, fishers and politicians alike to openly deliberate them in a socially inclusive, equitable and evidence-based manner. Implementing sHCRs would require identifying and prioritising social objectives, then building datasets and monitoring systems for evaluating progress towards those objectives. Scientific evaluation of the social performance of fisheries will be a significant step for- ward over the current situation where, if social objectives are in- cluded at all in fisheries management (such as ‘stability’ through the EU common fisheries policy, see Condie et al., 2014), these benefits are assumed, rather than assessed. Such a process would also make explicit and assessable claims that social goals are achieved through good environmental stewardship. sHCRs can be used to make a sub-set of the social objectives of fishing operational and measurable in management. In doing so, sHCRs can contribute to addressing the enduring challenge of ensuring that the social dimensions of sustainability are central to fisheries policy.
We hope this article generates debate amongst biologists and social scientists alike to recognize that setting HCRs is by definition an interdisciplinary undertaking. Social objectives are implicitly included in the operation of bHCRs and bHCRs inherently have social effects. Developing sHCRs is one way of marrying biological and social objectives in fisheries. By making a priori decisions on who gets how much fish under specified conditions sHCRs could provide a framework for a politics of distributional justice informed by scientific evidence. We also propose that sHCRs could improve the policy process in situations where fishing occurs beyond what is biologically recommended. While it may be unpalatable to allow for overfishing in fisheries management, even temporarily, the reality is that overfishing is already often allowed for social reasons and that the policy process around such decisions is poor. sHCRs can provide a transparent framework for assessing and holding fisheries agencies accountable for achieving social objectives. Where temporary overfishing is deemed socially necessary, sHCRs provide a means of setting justification for it, evaluating the outcomes and pre-decided plans for rebuilding stocks afterwards. Making more explicit which social objectives are pursued through sHCRs may also enhance the legitimacy of HCRs by providing clarity on the social relevance of setting biological references and limits. sHCRs may even open up debate around the wider role of HCRs in fisheries where stakeholders have struggled to see the relevance of, or lacked the willingness to set bHCRs.