Managing Marine Mammals and Fisheries: A Calibrated Programming Model for the Seal-Fishery Interaction in Sweden

Abstract

AbstractThis paper develops a model based on the concept of Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) that is useful for ex-ante analyses of how policy measures affect commercial fisheries. PMP models are frequently used in agriculture, but rarely for analyzing fisheries. Fisheries often face a large set of constraints such as effort regulations and catch quotas of which some might be binding and others not. An econometric approach is developed for calibrating models with both binding and non-binding constraints. The interaction between seals and Swedish fisheries is used as an empirical application. Seal interaction is modeled as seals predating fish from passive gear (nets and hooks), which is primarily an issue for the coastal fishery. The model contains 24 fleet segments involved in 247 different fishing activities in 2012. The results show that if no further management action is taken, fisheries using passive gear will reduce their activities from about 46 000 days at sea per year to about 41 000 and reducing their economic performance from losses of about 2 million Euros to about 3.3 million. The impact from seals can be reduced by reducing the seal population or providing economic compensation.