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Article Excerpt
Introduction
Current regulations limit the amount of time catcher vessels and catcher-processor vessels may fish, which often precludes vessels from operating at their full, productive capacity (Weninger and Strand, 2003). At present, it's unclear what the level of catch would be if the existing fleet of vessels that operate in Federally managed Alaska fisheries were allowed to fish for longer periods of time during the year (under normal operating conditions). (1) A first step toward addressing this question is to compare existing capacity to actual catch. A significant difference between the two indicates that there is likely more investment in the fishery than that which maximizes the net benefits to the nation, and it may signal the need for implementing measures to diminish or eliminate the incentives for, and presence of, excess capacity (FAO, 1998). (2)
The process of estimating potential catch, in the presence of regulations, essentially requires one to examine past and present fishing activity to determine the extent to which current effort, and catch, could and/or would increase if existing conditions or regulations changed. (3) The capacity measures computed in this paper were constructed using data on catch (in metric tons, (t)), participation (in weeks), and vessel characteristics of catcher vessels and catcher-processor vessels that operated in Federally managed Alaska commercial fisheries from 1990 to 2001. In addition to computing the capacity estimates, we also illustrate how utilization of individual fisheries, total weeks of participation, and sizes of particular fleets have varied over the last decade. The specific data sources include Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) fish tickets, Federal blend data (which includes data from both observer reports and weekly production reports), ADFG vessel-registration files, and Federal vessel-registration files.
Notions Underlying Capacity Measurement
In addition to the current fishing regulations, there are technological and economic constraints that limit the amount of fish that fishermen are willing and able to catch. Generally speaking, technological constraints can be thought of as "physical" limits on the maximum amount of fish that fishermen could catch (based on the gear used, the size and power of the vessel, the health of the stocks, weather, fishing skill, etc.). Economic constraints are those factors that affect fishermen's decisions over how much effort to exert and which species to catch (i.e. costs of fuel, bait, and labor; opportunity costs of participating in other fisheries; and ex-vessel prices).
Ideally, one could compute capacity measures that reflect the maximum amount of fish that could and would be caught by fishermen, given existing technological, biological, and economic constraints, if all regulatory restrictions governing catch were relaxed (NMFS, in press). Such measures would indicate the realistic "catching power" of the fleet, and could then be compared to actual catch in order to gauge excess capacity (indicating the extent to which current production differs from an economically optimal level).
Similarly, one could compare existing capacity to some optimal, desired level of capacity at the current stock conditions or another reference point (such as when stocks are rebuilt to levels corresponding to maximum economic yield or maximum sustainable yield) to obtain a measure of overcapacity. (4)
Unfortunately, both endeavors require a great deal of information, most of which is lacking for Federally managed Alaska fisheries (as well as in most other fisheries); measurement of overcapacity requires the most information (and speculation) and is thus impractical for nearly all fisheries with current data collection practices. Notably, there is a general absence of data on production costs and input use (Felthoven, 2002). (5)
One approach that could be undertaken with the existing data is to construct "technical" capacity estimates using data envelopment analysis (DEA) or stochastic production frontier (SPF) models. Such analyses essentially focus on the maximum level of catch that vessels could obtain if they operated with full (and often heightened) technical efficiency and unrestricted use of variable inputs (Dupont et al., 2002). Typically, however, the maximum technical/physical level of catch exceeds that which would occur when economic factors (such as costs) are accounted for, and thus may overstate the amount that would be caught. For this reason, this paper does not derive technical capacity estimates. Rather, we attempt to purge the major constraints that limit fishing effort, while still accounting for the impacts of technological and economic constraints implicit in the data on catch and effort (another benefit of this approach is that we do not impute potential technical efficiency increases in the capacity estimates).
Put another way, the observed effort and catch histories for Alaska fisheries are a result of the regulatory, technical, and economic constraints that have typically existed. For example, catch levels reflect the relative prices paid for each target species, the technological tradeoffs of catching one species instead of another, and bycatch caps that limit the catch of prohibited species (which are joint in the production technology due to imperfect gear selectivity (Larson et at., 1998)).
The approach used to estimate current fishing capacity in this paper attempts to account for the decreases in effort, catch, and participation that have occurred over time due to decreases in the total allowable catch (TAC), which limit both catch and effort. While the capacity estimates still embody many of the spatial restrictions and bycatch constraints, they essentially reflect what would and could be caught by the fleet under normal operating conditions, given 2001 targeting strategies and the existing technical and economic constraints.
It is too complex a task to successfully mimic the removal of all existing regulatory constraints that limit catch, given the multitude of interactions and targeting strategies that arise in response to those regulations. In some cases, regulations for a species may generate direct regulatory and indirect economic impacts (such as area closures that force vessels to travel further out to sea) that can be very difficult to disentangle. For these reasons, no attempt is made to purge such effects in this study. Similarly, we do not speculate what could be caught under stock levels larger than those observed during 1990 to 2001. More detail on the exact procedures used in the process to estimate capacity will be provided later in the paper.
There are wide ranges of fishing activities, vessel sizes, targeting strategies, and gear configurations in the various Federally managed Alaska fisheries. Generally speaking, however, groups can be established that are likely to share similar technological, economic, and regulatory (TAC's, closures, seasonal delineation) constraints. In an attempt to establish such groups, vessel characteristics, fishery participation, and processing data (for catcher-processor vessels) were examined. As a result, 12 catcher vessel groups and 10 catcher-processor vessel groups were formed (hereafter referred to as "subgroups"). Each of these subgroups is comprised of similarly equipped and similarly sized vessels that engage in a common set of fisheries (in the case of catcher-processor vessels, they also produce a similar set of finished products). Such a grouping allows us to present the capacity estimates on a fleet-by-fleet basis, which more clearly elucidates the sources of fishing capacity.
In addition, by categorizing the vessels into homogeneous subgroups one has a more realistic idea of what vessels in each subgroup could have caught, even for those vessels that have exhibited very little activity. This in part allows one to account for latency in the capacity estimates, although we make no other attempt to account for latent capacity of inactive vessels in our estimates, as our focus is on active participants. However, one could easily estimate the capacity of the latent vessels with techniques similar to those illustrated here.
By focusing on the range of effort for a set of well defined, comparable peers, one can reasonably determine the effort levels that the less active vessels were capable of exerting (if economic incentives arose that led them to do so). Although care was taken defining and refining the 22 vessel subgroups designated in this paper, it is worth noting that the validity of these types of peer comparisons can be compromised by unobserved heterogeneity among vessels in each subgroup (FAO, 1998). For this reason, the estimator [[??].sup.i.sub.j] avoids such comparisons (it is based solely on each vessel's historic participation) and should be interpreted as the more conservative capacity estimator. Alternatively, the estimator [[??].sup.i.sub.j] does involve comparisons among vessels within each subgroup, and thus it should be interpreted more cautiously. Note, however, that in most cases the resulting estimates from the two estimators turned out to be quite similar, as illustrated by the tables at the end of this report. Further details on the estimators and [[??].sup.i.sub.j] are given below.
Formulation of Capacity Estimators
There are several ways in which one could estimate the potential level of effort and catch of a fishing vessel, each of which could generate different estimates of capacity output. However, with the aim of providing realistic estimates of what could (and would) actually be caught, we base our analysis on each vessel's historical participation and effort in each of the Alaska commercial fisheries.
Specifically, we compare the total number of weeks each vessel fished in 2001 with the most weeks it fished over the 1990-2001 period (where 52 weeks is the greatest number of weeks each vessel could theoretically participate in a given year). If effort (in weeks) exceeded the 2001 effort in another year, it is assumed that the existing capacity of the vessel should be based upon that higher level of effort (which would instead be exerted upon the observed 2001 species composition). This process thus involves radially scaling up the observed 2001 catch statistics by the ratio of maximum operating weeks for 1990-2001 to observed operating weeks in 2001. This approach thus assumes constant returns to scale and Leontief input-output separability (Chambers, 1988). (6)
An issue that arises in basing the calculations on total annual effort is that one may generate participation levels in a specific fishery that are above any exhibited in the past. For example, if a vessel is now operating half as many total weeks as in a former year (and targets groundfish and crab), our approach would compute capacity as twice the size of the observed 2001 catch...
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