Flexibility in the North Norwegian Fishing Commons

Abstract

"Flexibility in the fishing commons is one way the fishermen can adapt to changes in the marine ecological systems. If we regard the marine systems as 'systems of chaos','the fishermen's flexibility in adapting is a way of coping with the uncertainty and costs associated with the unpredictable variation in the biomass of the individual species within the systems. From this point of view, the fishery management has been criticized for basing the regulations on single-species fishing and not taking into account the more flexible types of fishing (multi-species fishing).

"The paper presents an empirical study of flexibility hi the North Norwegian fishing commons. Flexibility is defined as fishery characterized by the exploitation of different species, and that the exploitation is evenly distributed among the species. The analysis is based on statistics for 1993 from the Norwegian Directorate of fisheries, and include data on the catch of 1277 fishing boats registered hi the county of Finnmark.

"The main findings are that the mobile ocean and coastal fishing boats, which use active fishing gear like seines and trawls, are the most flexible fleet. In contrast, the less mobile fishing boats that fish hi the fjords, and use passive fishing gear - especially handlines, comprise the least flexible fleet. The findings show that modern fisheries are not characterized by poor technology which means that the non-mobile fishing boats have to exploit the fish species that crop up hi the local area. Instead, flexibility is associated with the largest, most mobile and best equipped fishing boats. Thus mobility is not a way of achieving selective or single-species fishing. The author also argues for a more precise definition of flexibility, because while the mobile boats with active gear are functionally flexible, the less mobile fleet using passive gear is numerically flexible.

"Therefore a sustainable and flexible - or multi-species management of the fisheries - has to be adapted to numerical flexibility hi the modern fisheries. This management could then build on the traditional knowledge of the small-scale fishermen about how to regulate the local biomass of the stock, or on the social norms in local fishery communities that regulate the exploitation. A type of management that promotes functionally flexiblefisheries will favour the capital-intensive mobile fleet."