Exploring compensatory mitigation and markets as mechanisms for resolving fisheries bycatch: Biodiversity conservation conflicts

The social and economic importance of fisheries and the biological realities of its impacts results in cardinal tensions over ocean resources. Fisheries provide approximately 16% of all protein consumed by humans and are valued at US$82 billion annually. However, eight percent of the global fishery catch is bycatch which is discarded; resulting in major impacts on marine systems. Increasingly, institutions are pressuring for sustainable management of species impacted by fisheries. Where bycatch cannot be avoided, fishery closures are being implemented, often driven by lawsuits, with costly outcomes for society. An offset approach to this conflict could facilitate high value uses of biological resources while making conservation gains for threatened species. Taking seabirds as an example, fishers could be levied for bycatch and capital transferred to fund conservation actions on breeding colonies (e.g., the removal of invasive mammals¿the primary threat to seabirds worldwide). A preliminary analysis has shown eradication of invasive predators can be 12 times more effective from an economic cost-conservation benefit perspective in comparison with fisheries closures. In addition, transferable bycatch fees, which could increase with endangerment, also provide individual incentives for avoiding bycatch, the most effective mechanism for sustainable management of fisheries. We are developing a general framework for this approach, using seabirds and sea turtles as case studies. Given limited conservation dollars, compensatory mitigation provides an opportunity to address a global concern, maximize the return on investment of conservation interventions, and forge an alliance between conservation and fisheries organizations, circumventing costly and socio-politically damaging battles over bycatch conflicts.