1. EU-FP6-EFIMAS
Participatory Fisheries Management Evaluation Frameworks
and example of use for fleet based MSE in North Sea mixed fisheries
J. Rasmus Nielsen, EFIMAS Coordinator
and Clara Ulrich-Rescan, Katell Hamon and Stuart Reeves
EFIMAS
About 30 Research Institutes with Multi-Disciplinary Expertise
Biology – Economy – Sociology
Fisheries Research Institutes and Universities

2. EFIMAS Project – EU FP6 SSP8-CT-2003-50251
EFIMAS - Operational Evaluation Tools for Fisheries Management Options
EFIMAS: EU FP6 Financed Project. Project period:
Total Project Budget: 7.5 Mill. EURO (EU Financing: 4.5 Mill. EURO)
Intenational Coordinator: DIFRES
Participants (29 Research Institutes and Universities):
Fisheries Biological Institutes: 16 national institutes (4 universities now) &
1 university participating
Bio-economical Institutes: national institutes &
5 universities participating

3. Overall Concept, idea and objectives of EFIMAS
To establish a bio-economic Fisheries Management Evaluation Framework
Simulation framework being able to run stochastic simulations
Take account of dynamics of the fisheries system including fleet dynamics and
interactions, economic effects and sociological effects besides biological stock
effects (i.e. fleets and stocks - not only stocks)
Which can compare the performance of a range of management options under
alternative management systems and objectives (scenario evaluation)
Which can evaluate alternative management strategies (MSE),
e.g. mixed fisheries
Which can be applied and implemented to a number of EU Fisheries systems
Which can be perform:
technical evaluation (uncertainty, robustness and sensitivity assessment)
sociological process evaluation through feed-back from stakeholders

4. Structure and Work Package Cyclic Feed-back
EFIMAS Project Structure
Structure and Work Package Cyclic Feed-back
WP1 Project management (DIFRES)
WP2 Knowledge review
(AZTI)
WP3 Generic framework
development
(CEFAS / DIFRES)
WP5 Evaluation
(IFM)
WP4 Case study
application
(IMARES, DIFRES, CEMARE)

5. WP2: Review of Global and European Knowledge Basis to be used in EFIMAS
Objectives / Deliverables:
- review of relevant available knowledge base
- review performance of relevant existing fisheries management systems
- review existing frameworks for evaluation of fisheries management systems
- review how management decision making processes are informed by
knowledge and the limitations in communicating knowledge

6. WP2 Productions and Dissemination
1. Book in ELSEVIER Science Series 2006
“The Knowledge Base for Fisheries Management”
2. Technical Report on “Review and compilation of published
relevant evaluations of management systems (world
wide), and review and description of present
management and management decision-making
process (EU)”.
2a. Annex Report 1: “Overview of models, data and
software used in contrasting Fisheries Management
Systems” described in the main Technical Report.

7. WP 3 Generic Management Evaluation Framework
Objectives / Deliverables:
Provide simulation framework(s) to test alternative management
options / strategies
Provide software package(s) with full operating simulation models
comprehending the biological and technical / economic dynamics
(stock dynamics, fleet dynamics, technical interactions, etc).
- Provide an integrated suite of software within a common language
and interface and with full documentation

8. EFIMAS Conceptual Box Flow Diagram

9. OPERATING MODEL MANAGEMENT PROCEDURE Management decision stage
Represents the “true” dynamics of the system against which performance will be measured
Fleet dynamics
FLFleet
MANAGEMENT PROCEDURE
Assess status of stock and set management options depending upon perceived status of fishery stock(s)
Management decision stage
Biological reference points (e.g. MSY)
FLBRP
Management procedure
FLHCR
MODEL CONDITIONING
IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
FLEcon
INITIAL CONDITIONS
OBSERVATION ERROR MODEL
Generation of data on fishery and stocks.
FLOEM
SUMMARY STATISTICS
Used to evaluate performance of management procedures against objectives.
Population biology
Stock dynamics
FLBiol
Stock processes
e.g. Recruitment
FLSR
Assessment procedure
Assessment assumptions
Auxiliary information
(e.g. tuning indices)
FLIndices
Perceived stock
FLStock
Stock assessment (e.g. VPA)
FLAssess

10. The EFIMAS and FLR Approach
FLR is a framework e.g. a library of “lego blocks” which can be used to build different case specific models, and allows collaboration since anybody can design new lego blocks (object oriented).
It is “Open Source” all source code is available
Uses an existing interface and statistical/graphical R tools
The FLR library is based upon R and the S4 Classes

11. WP4: Application of the framework to
selected case studies and case specific analyses
Case specific applications for 8 case studies representing
important EU Fisheries and addressing different general and typological
management problems in European fisheries management
Purpose:
to apply and test the evaluation framework on case studies
to apply descriptive fisheries / stocks assessment models and analysis tools
to analyse the biological and economical-technical dynamics for case studies
to evaluate relevant management scenarios
to further develop existing descriptive models and tools for the evaluation frame
to develop further the contents of the framework by testing on case studies
(including documentation and user-interface)

12. WP4: Key issues addressed by Case Study

13. WP5: Evaluation (and Dissemination)
Objectives
Technical and process evaluation of the evaluation framework
Provision of feed back from e.g. stakeholders for Work Packages 3 and 4
Technical Evaluation
WP3-4: Evaluation of the framework and descriptive models through:
- uncertainty assessment (stochastic and repeated simulation)
(structure and process errors (structural uncertainty); observation errors
(parametric uncertainty); implementation error)
- sensitivity and robustness (alteration of (key) parameters)
- predictive power (scenario evaluation)
- identification of limitations in use and set-up of the models
- proof reading and testing of code

14. WP5: Results / Status of work
Process Evaluation:
Interviews have been carried out with decision makers who make use
of bio-economic models
Five focus groups have been held in each of 5 countries with several
meetings in all countries with different stakeholders
- UK, Ireland, Spain, Denmark and Greece
Targeted stakeholders: skippers, processors, women in fishing societies,
local and regional managers, and conservationists.
Discussed perceptions of fisheries models in general and the EFIMAS
approach in particular

16. Examples of dissemination
and application of
participatory modelling
using output from EFIMAS

17. Example: North Sea mixed roundfish fisheries MSE
Issue : technical interactions cod-haddock
Low cod biomass High haddock biomass
Effects of cod recovery plan not as wide as expected
Stocks caught together by main demersal fleets

18. How may TAC work in such situations?
North Sea mixed roundfish fisheries MSE
How may TAC work in such situations?
Low cod TAC, taken with low effort /
high haddock TAC, taken with a higher level of effort
Fleets dilemma:
stop fishing when cod TAC caught and underutilise haddock TAC (”min effort” scenario)
go on fishing until haddock TAC caught and get overquota catches of cod (”max effort” scenario)
What are the long-term effects of such scenarios?
simulation work, with 11 fleets and ICES/EU management procedures

19. Results Max Effort Min Effort
Black : “Real truth” (simulated underlying population)
Green : “Perceived truth” (seen from VPA’s eyes and used for deciding upon management)

20. The next step : providing mixed-fisheries advice
Question : which single-species TAC should be proposed to be consistent across stocks?
Methodology : The Fcube approach (ICES MixMan )
Main focus : fleets (vessel types) and fisheries (activity types)
Each fleet has its own set of incentives based on its set of quota shares
Hypotheses are proposed on their likely behaviour and level of effort (max, min, valuable species, days at sea regulation…)
corresponding landings (< quota share) and overquota catches (> quota share) are estimated

21. North Sea mixed roundfish fisheries MSE
Example : investigating effects of 2007 TACs
Cod, haddock, whiting, saithe, sole, plaice, Nephrops
Very restrictive cod TAC, unrestrictive whiting TAC
All international North Sea fleets (19)
Scenarios :
”min” (stop fishing when first quota exhausted)
”max” (stop fishing when last quota exhausted)
”value” (effort towards most valuable quota shares)
”status quo” (unchanged effort between 2006 and 2007)
”DAS reduction” (partial reduction of cod-targeting fisheries)
”cod” (action necessary to avoid cod overquota for all fleets)

22. Cod TAC
Sole TAC
Saithe TAC
Haddock TAC
Plaice TAC
Results

23. North Sea mixed roundfish fisheries MSE
Results

24. Conclusions North Sea mixed roundfish fisheries MSE
Inconsistent 2007 TAC, single-species management objectives cannot be reached simultaneously
At current levels of effort, large cod overquota are estimated to have happened in 2007
It is possible to test the biological and economic effects of alternative consistent TAC (short-, medium- and long-term), as a basis for robust mixed-fisheries management plans
This approach can be enlarged to non-target species and broader ecosystem approach

25. The established Evaluation Framework(s)
Developed in cooperation with other projects:
with overlapping case studies (e.g. COMMIT using FLR);
other projects with other purposes
(e.g. PROTECT evaluating closed areas / seasons using TEMAS, ISIS-FISH),
(e.g. UNCOVER/BECAUSE integrating multi-species aspects using SMS, 4M, FLR),
(e.g. FISBOAT using FLR and other models for research survey evaluation)
Results in Technical Reports and at EFIMAS Web Sites:
EFIMAS DokuWiki:
FLR Web Site:
EFIMAS PublicWeb Site:
Development and status described at the FLR website with the whole evaluation framework and case
study implementation
In particular the summary of packages
Publication in many scientific papers, Dissemination and Stakeholder feed-back
among other obtained at the EFIMAS Conference
Framework and network development on Economics through ECONOWS
Multi-disciplinary network / Platform establishment (cross sectoral)