Fishing for efficiency
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) supports the fishing industry in various ways. It sets fishing quotas for EU nations to avoid overexploitation of the sector. The EU-funded project 'Cost and benefit of control strategies' (Cobecos) analysed control schemes for management strategies and outlined expected economic benefits from proper management and enforcement of the CFP. The project proposed a mix of enforcement tools to improve benefits to society. It developed software to help analyse case studies, models and applicability in order to deduce the costs and benefits of different management and operating tools. Evidence has shown that the cost of enforcing quota limitations and licensing often exceeded the benefits. To address this, the project proposed a new enforcement theory that involved stricter sanctions for illegal activities. Once Cobecos formulated its theory, it factored in several activities and management practices of fisheries with different combinations of management controls requiring separate management systems. The proposed controls include biological management methods, taxes, subsidies, property rights and direct economic restrictions to increase profitability. All these have been incorporated into the new software system targeting enforcement authorities. The easy-to-use software comes with tutorials and manuals that effectively assist control agents, managers and national authorities to achieve optimal control strategies, save on costs and allocate resources more efficiently. European fisheries and the aquaculture sector are set to benefit considerably from this endeavour.
