Constantine Alexander's blog

Enforcement and compliance trends under IFQ management in the Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery

Last week, Marine Policy released a study by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) analyzing the relationship of enforcement and compliance behavior in the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) program, a catch share program implemented in 2007. The goal of the study was to better understand how catch shares management affects enforcement and compliance behavior.

The results of the study show that compliance has improved under the IFQ program. Over the past five years, the total number of violations has decreased. The analysis also reveals shifts in the type of violations detected: Violations pertaining to permits, illegal sales, closed seasons and catch limits have decreased, while reporting and record keeping violations have become more common following catch share implementation. The reduction in overall violations is good news and the increase in recordkeeping violations were anticipated as fishermen adjusted to new landing and reporting rules.

Abstract

United States fisheries are increasingly relying on catch share programs for fisheries management, but the relationship of these programs with compliance and enforcement behavior is not well understood. This study uses historical enforcement records and surveys of fishery participants to investigate how imposition of catch share management in the Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery has altered patterns of fisheries violations and fisher perceptions of changes in compliance. This fishery has been partially managed under individual fishing quotas (IFQs) since 2007, allowing for comparison of compliance and enforcement prior to and after introduction of catch share management. The shift to catch shares in this fishery has yielded minor but expected changes in enforcement activity. The overall number of cases declined, and the mix of cases shifted: enforcement incidents related to reporting and recordkeeping became more common and catch limit and permit cases declined. These changes are consistent with expectations about the effects of catch shares. However, confidence in these results is limited by the low number of applicable cases, the effects of enforcement effort on case frequency, and the effects of other management system changes during the study—most notably, new vessel monitoring system (VMS) and observer program requirements. Limitations in the enforcement data and survey data both suggest that noncompliance in the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery is higher than suggested by the low number of relevant records in the federal enforcement database, but that compliance has improved in the sector under catch share management. The study concludes that increased enforcement resources may be justified to ensure continued compliance benefits and to ensure the accuracy of landings records.

Reference: Enforcement and compliance trends under IFQ management in the Gulf of Mexico commercial reef fish fishery. Read D. Porter, Zachary Jylkka, Greta Swanson, Environmental Law Institute, 2000 L Street, Suite 620, Washington, DC 20036, USA

 

Marine energy doubled by predicting wave power

The energy generated from our oceans could be doubled using new methods for predicting wave power. Research led by the University of Exeter, published (27 June) in the journal Renewable Energy, could pave the way for significant advancements in marine renewable energy, making it a more viable source of power.

The study was carried out by a team of mathematicians and engineers from the University of Exeter and Tel Aviv University. They devised a means of accurately predicting the power of the next wave in order to make the technology far more efficient, extracting twice as much energy as is currently possible.

Marine energy is believed to have the potential to provide the UK with electricity twice over. However, technologies to extract and convert energy from the sea are relatively immature, compared with solar or wind, and are not yet commercially competitive without subsidy. Very substantial progress has been made by the leading device developers, but key challenges remain: preventing devices being damaged by the hostile marine environment; and improving the efficiency of energy capture from the waves. This research addresses both problems by enabling control over the devices that extract wave energy. The key to this is to enable devices to accurately predict the power of the next wave and respond by extracting the maximum energy.

The research focused on point absorbers, commonly-used floating devices with parts that move in response to waves, generating energy which they feed back to the grid. Point absorbers are already known to be much more efficient in the amount of energy they produce if their response closely matches the force of the waves and previous research has looked at trying to increase this efficiency. However, this is the first study that has focused on increasing the device's efficiency by predicting and controlling internal forces of the device caused by forthcoming waves.

The team devised a system, which enables the device to extract the maximum amount of energy by predicting the incoming wave. This information enables a programme to actively control the response required for a wave of a particular size. Because the device responds appropriately to the force of the next wave, it is far less likely to be damaged and would not need to be turned off in stormy conditions, as is currently the case.

Lead author Dr Guang Li of the University of Exeter said: "Our research has the potential to make huge advances to the progress of marine renewable energy. There are significant benefits to wave energy but progressing this technology has proved challenging. This is a major step forward and could help pave the way for wave energy to play a significant role in providing our power."

Co-author Dr Markus Mueller of the Environment and Sustainability Institute at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus said: "The next step is for us to see how effective this approach could be at a large scale, by testing it in farms of Wave Energy Converters."

The University of Exeter is collaborating with Ocean Power Technologies, a leading wave energy device developer, to exploit and further develop the results from this research. This further activity is supported by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) in a project called 'WavePort'.

Contact: Sarah Hoyle
s.hoyle@exeter.ac.uk
44-139-272-2062
University of Exeter