Proceedings of the 65 th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute November 5 – 9, 2012 Santa Marta, Colombia Economic Determinants of Fishing Effort in Colombia's Caribbean Spiny Lobster Fishery Determinantes Económicos del Esfuerzo de Pesca en la Pesquería de Langosta Espinosa del Caribe Colombiano Les Déterminants Economiques de l'Effort de Pêche dans la Pêche de la Colombie Langouste Blanche des Caraïbes JOSH NOWLIS 1 *, ERICK CASTRO 2,3 , MARTHA PRADA 3 , TRISHA FORBES 2 , HUGO WILSON 2 , HEINS BENT 2 , and LUCY ALVAREZ BUSTILLO 4 1 Bridge Environment, 947 NE Boat Street, Seattle, Washington USA. *Josh@BridgeEnvironment.org. 2 Secretaría de Agricultura y Pesca, Coral Place, Avenida Newball, San Andrés Isla, Colombia. 3 Corporación para el Desarrollo Sosteni- ble del Archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina—CORALINA, Via San Luis, San Andrés Isla, Colombia. 4 Antillana SA, Zona Industrial Portuaria, Cr1 Noroeste 8-41, Relleno Muelle, San Andrés Isla, Colombia. ABSTRACT In assessing fisheries, effort information can often be a limiting factor. This is true of well documented legal fishing fleets, and even more so of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fleets. We studied the insular Colombian Caribbean spiny lobster fishery to see if economic conditions have influenced fishing effort in the observed fleet. We have catch per unit effort data from the diver- and trap-based industrial fishing vessels with Colombian permits spanning a period of light fishing, expansion, stock collapse, and recent signs of rebuilding. Economic data were available on the costs of fishing and expected revenues over the past 15 years. We performed a regression analysis of various measures of fishing effort on expected costs of fishing and on expected revenue per unit effort. Effort measures included annual participation (a binary variable), trips per season, and days per trip. Expected costs of fishing were calculated by accounting for a wide range of factors, but fuel price drove annual variability. Expected revenues per unit effort were determined by multiplying the price of lobster by last season’s fleet-specific catch per unit effort, both of which varied from year to year. Our results indicate that boats were more likely to participate and take more trips per year when fishing costs were lower and expected revenue per unit effort were higher. Trips were also longer when costs were lower. Our results imply that economic conditions may be crucial in determining fishing pressure, and provide insight for better modeling of IUU fishing. KEY WORDS: Fisheries economics, predicting fishing effort, spiny lobster INTRODUCTION In textbook form, assessment models present a simplified view of a fishery, in which science dictates management measures and these measures motivate compliance. While most scientists with any real-world experience will admit to frequent gaps between science and management, both of these links are tenuous. A more realistic view of a fishery treats it as a system that includes ecological dynamics, which are beyond our direct control; human nature in the form of personal and social incentives, which are also beyond our control; and a management system, which is our best attempt at control. Failures in the motivation of compliance can lead to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. This paper uses a stock assessment combined with economic analyses to examine IUU fishing. It asks two fundamental questions: i) How much control do we have over fisheries? ii) Can we improve assessments by using economic variables to estimate IUU fishing pressure? Colombia's insular fishery for Caribbean spiny lobster ( Panulirus argus) provided us with a particularly useful chance to study economic incentives and IUU fishing. For the San Andrés archipelago, also known as the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, the spiny lobster is the largest fishery, valued at over six billion COP of legal product annually, and represents the only major export from this region. It also has an important local cultural history (Shacochis 1985). As with other Colombi- an fisheries, this one is managed through annual quotas, size limits, and closed seasons and areas. However, enforcement is made difficult by the remoteness of the fishing grounds, which also increase the cost of fishing due to heavy fuel consump- tion. The high value of the fishery, combined with proximity of fishing grounds to Nicaragua and Honduras, creates conflict and persistent unpermitted fishing, which further undermine enforcement and compliance. METHODS We first assessed the health of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve’s spiny lobster fishery in 2006, and revised the assessment each year from 2008 – 2012. These assessment efforts relied primarily on estimated catches and abundance indices calculated from the catch-per-unit-effort of the two main fishing sectors: dive boats and trap boats. There is also limited size information available, but not enough to build into the assessment model. CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Aquatic Commons