According to U.S. law (MSRA) we must develop annual catch limits for every stock in the U.S. Caribbean fishery management plans. However, the available data is very limited. In fact, we do not have reliable catch estimates for many stocks, and we believe that effective enforcement of catch limits is unlikely in any case. We are evaluating "management equivalents" that might achieve necessary harvest reductions and allow us to monitor and estimate improvements in stock condition at low expense.
We are aware of the literature regarding time-area closures and marine protection areas (MPAs). What other management equivalents have been used successfully to manage stocks in data poor situations?
Some of the work by Kyle Van Houtan may be useful--he, with his collaborators, have developed a few ways to model historical stock sizes and catch abundances using traditional knowledge, market price fluctuations, and other metrics which may be available in your situation. I've linked his RG profile here so you can check out his work (if you haven't already). It may help fill in the gaps to develop the traditional catch limits?
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kyle_Van_Houtan
I found a Fisheries Research journal volume for Development, testing, and evaluation of data-poor assessment and fisheries management methods. This also may useful for you.
Link:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01657836/171
Check next papers:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783615300291
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783615300230
Good luck!
The California Dept of Fish and Game and California Sea Grant held a workshop on managing data-poor fisheries in 2008. Many of the papers presented were published (I think there was a volume in Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science that came out in 2009) and there's been a lot of work subsequently. Alec McCall (retired) and John Field from the SWFSC, among others, contributed significantly to these efforts. The paper by Schroeter et al "Moving from Data Poor to Data Rich: A Case Study of Community-Based Data Collection for the San Diego Red Sea Urchin Fishery" may be particularly relevant.
I'm working in Micronesia now with colleagues to help remote island communities develop fishery management programs. This is predicated in part on establishing some rudimentary data collection programs, but we incorporate a great deal of TEK, traditional management methods and other "non-standard" tools in part of course because the usual data simply aren't there. If you're interested in the Micronesia work, let me know and I can direct you to more information.
Thanks to everyone for your excellent suggestions. I look forward to reviewing the work.
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