Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2.2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines.
This report is the seventh of a suite of STECF EWG reports dedicated to the fishing effort regime in the Western Mediterranean Sea, following EWG reports 18-09, 18-13, 19-01, 19-14, 20-13 and 21-01.
The group was requested to progress to update mixed fisheries models and F-E analyses with the most recent data and the most recent stock assessments, to run a number of effort scenarios until 2025, to draft a mixed-fisheries advice including relevant scenarios and displays, to estimate conversion factors at metier and stock level and to discuss next steps.
The updates of the F-E analyses performed in previous years with the most recent time series showed contrasting results for the first time. The lack of a meaningful relationship persists for the deepwater shrimps stocks (ARA-ARS) and DPS while it becomes highly dependent on GSA, species, gear considered, level of spatial aggregation for the remaining stocks. It should be noted that the significance of the relationship should be further explored as for most stocks it seems to be due to individual points acting as outliers compared to the rest of the input data. Introducing a primary production parameter and testing non-linear models shows higher statistical significance at times suggesting that the F-E relationship is non-linear and that the factors intervening in it should be further explored.
2020 fishing effort and socio-economic data where analysed and put in comparison with 2019 data to evaluate the potential effects of the COVID-19 emergency lockdown period on the fishing activity.
In EMU 1the bioeconomic multifleet model IAM was update with the most recent stock assessment results from EWG 2111 and with the most updated economic data. The model was implemented with stochasticity for the first year and it was extended to account for increased selectivity on all fleets. Additionally a preliminary scenario accounting for TAC implementation was implemented with the plan to extend it next year.
Extended simulation work was performed regarding management scenarios in EMU 2 (GSAs 8-9-10-11). The multi-fleet BEMTOOL model was updated with latest data and extended, and 9 scenarios involving effort reductions, combined with spatial closures, increased selectivity and TACs, were simulated in a stochastic approach, where the area closure was implemented using the proportion of effort at spatial sub-unit, to calibrate an improvement of the exploitation pattern, based on an increase of the size at first capure. Also, the individual-based spatial model SMART was updated with 2020 data and additionally implemented a scenario with increased selectivity and accounting for TACs on deepwater fisheries. The results of the two models were compared.
Consistently with last year’s report a synthetic advice is proposed, summarising the key findings of the simulations. For the overexploited stocks (ARA and HKE in EMU1 and ARA, ARS and HAKE in EMU2) in the two management units, none of the scenarios investigated allows reaching Fmsy (nor Fmsy upper) in 2025, except in scenario H (implementation of TAC) as the quotas correspond to estimated catch at Ftransition, Fupper and Fmsy obtained from EWG 2111. Nevertheless, all scenarios involving substantial effort reductions foresee some positive effects on the biomass of the stocks even under the current poor levels of recruitment. Some economic results are presented, although it is acknowledged that given the large number of other species exploited beyond the key ones included in the management plan and in the simulation models, the actual socio-economic impact of the plan remains uncertain. Also, the economic results are presented considering a constant number of vessels, and would differ if the number of vessels is reduced. In the light of the F-E relationships analyses, all results presented in this report are considered to be overoptimistic since they assume a true reduction in F if effort decreases, which may in reality be more limited during the first years of effort reductions.
Following from STECF 2101, EWG 2113 reproduced the analysis to estimate conversion factors but applying it at metier and stock level. Interpreting these results it should be kept in mind that metier are quite unstable by nature across the year and therefore results could be biased by this anaccounted variability.
PINTO Cecilia;
MANNINI Alessandro;
Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) – Evaluation of the fishing effort regime in the Western Mediterranean – part VI (STECF-21-13), Pinto, C. and Mannini, A. editor(s), EUR 28359 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2021, ISBN 978-92-76-43488-7, doi:10.2760/121901, JRC126965.
2021-12-06
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC126965
978-92-76-43488-7 (online),
2467-0715 (online),
1831-9424,
EUR 28359 EN,
OP KJ-AX-21-013-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC126965,
10.2760/121901 (online),
