Interlocked use of inland fish resources: a new management strategy under private property rights

Abstract

Interlocked use of multiple inland vendace, Coregonus albula (L.), stocks is a relatively new strategy to exploit asynchronous fluctuations in abundance of natural fish stocks between waterbodies. It combines vendace stocks from different lakes or parts of lakes into one interlocked stock to be managed across waterbody ownership boundaries. Management of interlocked stocks can be regarded as one form of portfolio management. Exploitation of interlocked stocks should reduce the interannual variation in yield, and thus ensuring fishers more constant income and the market more constant material flow. The strategy requires fishers to increase their mobility, to benefit from asynchronous fluctuations in abundance of vendace stocks between exploitable waters. A postal inquire addressed to Finnish commercial inland fishers examined whether existing property rights institutionsÕ and fishersÕ harvesting policies were appropriate to establish interlocked use of multiple vendace stocks. Almost half of fishers had, to some extent, reaped benefit from a fishing strategy that included small-scale mobility, which is consistent with the proposed strategy. By harvesting three or four lakes and stocks, fishers increased their yield compared with exploiting one fishing ground and one vendace stock. Public ownership provided fishers access to stocks nearer their place of residence than other ownership types. K E Y W O R D S : fisheries management, inland fisheries, interlocked use, portfolio management, property rights, vendace.

Influence of warming temperatures on coregonine embryogenesis within and among species

“…Vendace and European whitefish are widely distributed in Northern Europe (Sipponen et al, 2006). Vendace spawning is initiated when water temperatures decrease to 6°C at the end of October in Lake Southern Konnevesi and lasts 2-3 weeks (Karjalainen & Marjomäki, 2018).…”

Interannual Variability of Fisheries Economic Returns and Energy Ratios Is Mostly Explained by Gear Type

“…The analysis of interannual variability in total revenues and economic returns of French fleets fishing in the Bay of Biscay did not generally reveal the compensations predicted by portfolio theory contrary to Chesapeake Bay [30], artisanal fishers in Dominica [31] or freshwater fisheries exploiting inland lakes [32]. In the Bay of Biscay, portfolio total revenues varied more than those for individual species for six out of eight fleets, the exceptions being pelagic trawls and the fleet using hooks.…”

Does a property rights regime affect the outcome of European inland commercial fisheries?

“…On the contrary in Finland and Sweden fisheries legislation confers numerous privileges on commercial fisheries and state ownership of certain water areas important for commercial fishers has facilitated their access to inland fishing grounds (Sipponen et al, 2006). Second, management of fisheries is one of the basic actions needed in any fisheries system.…”

“…From the fisher's point of view, institutional arrangements play a significant role in management as they can ensure fishing enterprises a certain degree of stability in terms of operations and security of access -in particular, regarding capital-intensive sectors like trawling. For fishers, also diversification of fisheries is a way to increase flexibility and mitigate the risk of fluctuations in the abundance and availability of fish stocks (see Sipponen et al, 2006), i.e. adhering to portfolio-management (e.g.…”