SEAwise report on Carbon footprint, economic and social impacts of revised management strategies

The SEAwise project works to deliver a fully operational tool that will allow fishers, managers, and policy makers to easily apply Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management. This SEAwise report describes the impact of alternative future socio-economic scenarios (Global Sustainability, National Enterprise, Local Stewardship, World Markets) based on socioeconomic models incorporating enhanced submodels. The socioeconomic scenarios examined differ in the change in increase in climate change, fuel and fish price following CERES project. These scenarios were combined with management scenarios and with a specific focus on small scale (SSF) and large-scale (LSF) fleets in the North Sea, Celtic Sea, Bay of Biscay, Central Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean Sea. In addition to indicators related to socioeconomic aspects such as GVA and price, carbon emissions were estimated as kg CO₂ per kg of fish landed for all cases.

In the Bay of Biscay case study in the Western Waters, the impact of management scenarios on GVA varied between SSF and LSF fleet. Future fuel/first sale prices had a greater impact on the GVA of SSF compared to LSF. The impact of climate change amplified the effects of these scenarios. The impact of the future fish price/oil price on Carbin emissions was almost negligible, whereas the management scenarios did affect carbon emissions. For pelagic fleets, the StatusQuo scenario resulted in the highest carbon emissions; for demersal fleets, both the StatusQuo and PrettyGoodYield scenarios led to high carbon emissions.

The Celtic Sea case study in the Western Waters showed less impact of climate change than management scenario, as some stocks were expected to increase productivity while others decreased productivity. The F_MSY-min and F_MSY-range scenarios resulted in strong reductions of fishing effort for both the LSF and the SSF, and consequently a decline in employment. These scenarios also resulted in higher biomass, and an increase in catch per unit effort, which led to a higher revenue per unit of cost, and as a consequence, the economic indicators improved. The highest GVA occurred in the F_MSY-range scenario under RCP8.5 for the LSF, with little difference between the "World Market" and "National Enterprise" scenarios. For the SSF, the highest GVA was negative in the status quo effort scenarios. Fuel consumption and CO₂ emission per kg of fish were lowest under scenarios with strong effort reductions.

In the North Sea, Fuel and fish price developments together with climate change affected the economic performance of the demersal mixed fisheries, but the effect was less than that of the management scenario. Among the management scenarios, a strict implementation of the landing obligation always outperformed the Status-quo scenario. The Pretty good yield scenario showed the highest gains with only marginally higher CO₂-emissions. Among the socioeconomic scenarios, following a more sustainable path, open for technological development and localised sustainability (Local Stewardship) performed best in all indicators both for small and large scale fleets, due to the assumptions of favourable fish price developments combined with improved stock development under RCP4.5 compared to RCP8.5. The LSF performed economically better than the SSF in terms of GVA, wages and CO₂/kg fish while more people were employed in the SSF.

In the Adriatic and Western Ionian Sea in the Mediterranean, the status quo management scenario resulted in lower GVA values compared to F_MSY and PGY, with LSF benefiting more under PGY and SSF under F_MSY. The GVA did not differ substantially between socioeconomic scenarios, though there were slightly higher values in the long term under Local Stewardship. The worst-case scenario for LSF was "World Market," due to high fuel costs, while for SSF "Global Stewardship" performs poorest as the increase in fish prices did not compensate for the fuel increases. Labour cost projections were higher in "Local Stewardship" for both fleets, though SSF showed a delayed response. Fuel consumption and carbon emissions were highest in status quo scenarios, with SSF showing lower emissions than LSF.

In the Eastern Ionian Sea in the Mediterranean economic indicators are projected to continuously increase across all scenarios and both SSF and LSF, as the increase in revenues caused by increased fish prices exceeded the increase in fuel costs. For the LSF, economic indicators were higher in PGY scenario whereas for the SSF, although gross profit was negative, the Fishing Family Income (FFI) was positive and sufficient to support the fishing families across all scenarios. Fuel consumption per kg of landed fish of the SSF was less than that of the LSF (1.9-2.3 as opposed to 2.8-3.3 liter per kg of fish). This highlighted the potential use of SSF in reducing the carbon footprint towards achieving EU carbon emission reduction targets.

The Data Envelope Analysis applied in the Eastern Ionian Sea used a range of data, including catch volumes and operational costs, to compare different management strategies to investigate how different fleet segments and fishing gears performed in terms of technical efficiency and technological advancements. The results indicated that the SSF were more efficient than LSF in all periods and for all scenarios included in the analysis. SSF exhibited an average efficiency of 100% while LSF of 98%, but scenarios related to Fuel and Fish prices led to declines in efficiency.

The behavioural sub-models, to include the fishing strategies of the different modelled fleets, were integrated in the FLBEIA model for Bay of Biscay pelagic fishery and in the new BEMTOOL spatial component. Further, the dependency between fished stocks and landing ports was investigated using ICES RDBES data to quantify the direct local effect of fisheries on activities on land. While the quality and coverage of the data still need improvement, the preliminary analysis were promising. Using port of landing as a proxy for fishing communities, a quantitative map the potential impact of management on land can be estimated and important local stakeholders to engage with identified.

Read more about the SEAwise project at https://seawiseproject.org/