MANAGEMENT OF SHARED BALTIC
FISHERY RESOURCES
by
Robert Aps
Estonian Marine Institute
University of Tartu
RESOURCE CONFLICT
The most fundamental form of conflict
Contracting Parties IBSFC are dealing with is
that over fishery resources.
The direct way of resolving resource conflicts is
by each Contracting Party individually exploring
alternative resource allocations until a mutually
acceptable allocation (i.e. deal) is found.
INTERACTION
A particularly challenging problem is the
understanding of various forms of
interaction between Contracting Parties in
resolving the resource conflicts that is
enabling them to coordinate their activities,
cooperate to reach common objectives, or
exchange fishery resources to better
achieve their individual objectives.
NEGOTIATIONS
Contracting Party negotiates with other
Contracting Parties in order to get better
access to internationally regulated Baltic
fishery resources. Through negotiation,
Contracting Parties are also attempting to
reach agreement on the division of the
shared fishery resources or on a mutually
useful exchange of their own resources.
NEGOTIATION AIMS
Negotiation aims at reaching some
allocation of resources that is acceptable
to all Contracting Parties.
NEGOTIATION POSITION AND INTERESTS
Negotiation position of an Contracting
Party may be formulated in terms of the
resources that Contracting Party wants to
acquire from its negotiation counterpart.
Negotiation interests of the Contracting
Party reflect the underlying goals it wants
to achieve using these resources.
NEGOTIATION ISSUES
There are two main negotiation objects:
1) Setting TAC (how much TAC may differ
from the scientific advice provided by
ICES)
2) Re-allocation of the fishery resources
when and as necessary (establishing of
new allocation key)
TAC NEGOTIATIONS
Baltic cod, herring, sprat and salmon
NEGOTIATION PROTOCOL
Negotiation protocol is a repeated process
of making a offer and a counter offer until
Contracting Parties accept. The utility
functions that express preferences of
Contracting Parties over outcomes are
essential in their decision making.
NEGOTIATION PROTOCOL
The most basic form of negotiation is based on a
simple request protocol:
1) Contracting Party proposes deal
2) negotiation partner either accepts of rejects
A bargaining dialogue is a series of request
dialogues that terminate once an Contracting
Parties accepts a proposal.
An interest-based negotiation (I. Rahwan et al.,
2004) dialogue is a mix of bargaining,
information seeking and persuasion dialogues.
INTEREST BASED NEGOTIATION
The processes of interest-based
negotiation: acquiring information,
resolving uncertainties and revising
preferences normally take place as part of
the negotiation process itself. In adjusting
and adapting their strategies during
negotiations, learning Contracting Parties
are more likely to achieve better outcome.
ARGUMENT
Argument is a piece of information that
may allow a negotiation partner to justify
its negotiation stance; or influence another
partners negotiation stance (Jennings et al.,
1998).
ARGUMENTATION BASED APPROACH
Argumentation-based approach (I.Rahwan
et al., 2004) allow Contracting Parties to
exchange additional information, or to
argue about their beliefs and other
attitudes during the negotiation process.
COMMITMENTS
During a negotiation dialogue, a
Contracting Party may assert information
about its intentions and beliefs. Therefore
there is a need to capture and store the
commitments Contracting Parties make
during the negotiation and to specify how
these commitments influence the
subsequent unfolding of the negotiations.
COMMITMENT STORE
Commitment store is a public-read
information store that contains the
information that a Contracting Party has
publicly committed to.
COMMITMENT RULES
Commitment rules specify when and how
commitments are inserted to and
removed from commitment stores.
CONFIDENCE BASED STRATEGY
Confidence-based strategy (Leen-Kiat Soh &
Xin Li, 2004) :
1) a pipelined, one-at-a-time approach,
2) a confidence-based, packaged
approach.
IBSFC TAC RECOMMENDATIONS
30 years of TAC negotiations under the
IBSFC framework has shown that as a
rule the TAC recommendations by fish
stocks have always been higher than
scientific advice provided by ICES
RE-ALLOCATION OF FISHERY
RESOURCES
CASE: Baltic Herring
TIME FOR CHANGE
IBSFC is facing the difficult challenge to adjust
its Baltic herring and cod stock management
units to the structure of fish populations. In
practical terms this means re-allocation of the
Baltic herring fishery resources amongst IBSFC
Contracting Parties. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
and Poland became members of the European
Community on 1st May 2004. Therefore, the
problem of the Baltic herring and cod fishing
quota re-allocation may move to a different
political forum but its substance remains.
STOCK MANAGEMENT UNITS
Up to 2004 IBSFC managed the Baltic
herring in three management units:
1) Gulf of Bothnia (Subdivision 31),
2) Bothnian Sea (Subdivisions 30 + 29N)
and
3) Herring in the Western and Central
Baltic (Subdivisions 22-29S + 32).
MANAGEMENT DIFFICULTIES
Mismatch between stock structure and
management units created real difficulties for the
rational use and conservation of the Baltic
herring resources. For example, two
components of the combined Baltic herring stock
(Central Baltic herring in Subdivisions 22-29S +
32 and the Gulf of Riga herring) show distinct
divergent biomass trends; currently stock
biomass of the Central Baltic herring is
historically low, whereas the herring stock in the
Gulf of Riga is at a historical high.
NEW MANAGEMENT UNITS
IBSFC Long Term Strategy WG proposed in
2003 a the new scheme for management of
the Western and Central Baltic herring with five
management units:
1) Western Baltic (Subdivisions 22-24),
2) Central Baltic (Subdivisions 25-29S + 32
excl. Gulf of Riga)
3) Herring in the Gulf of Riga.
4) Gulf of Bothnia (Subdivision 31),
5) Bothnian Sea (Subdivisions 30 + 29N)
RELATIVE STATBILITY
For any revised allocation scheme to be
acceptable to all IBSFC Contracting
Parties fishing for the Baltic herring, the
scheme must secure that each
Contracting Party maintains the TAC share
it would be entitled to under the existing
allocation scheme irrespectively of the
area split and independently of how the
TACs might be composed.
WINNERS AND LOOSERS
If the new allocation scheme on the Baltic
herring would be agreed with individual
allocations for each of the new
management units then there will be
winner and loser Contracting Parties.
However, which Contracting Parties will be
among the winners and which among the
losers depend on the ratio between the
TACs agreed for the individual new
management units.
PAY BACK
The percentage allocation of the herring in
the Central Baltic would imply that Latvia
would need to pay back 17.88 % of the
herring TAC for Subdivisions 25-29S and
32 (excluding Gulf of Riga). This is
obvious not possible and is suggesting
that Latvia would need to pay its partners
in some other currency, e.g. cod.
Allocation (%) of the Baltic herring TAC by IBSFC
Contracting Party and by the Management Area
TAC in
tons
143 000
IBSFC
Allocation
key (%)
46000
22-24
62000
25-29S+32
35000
Gulf of Riga
Estonia
10,14
0,00
0,64
40,30
Denmark,
Finland,
Germany,
Sweden
54,95
88,51
61,07
0,00
Latvia
6,86
0,00
-17,88
59,70
Lithuania
2,14
0,00
4,94
0,00
Poland
20,14
11,49
37,93
0,00
Russia
5,77
0,00
13,31
0,00
ALLOCATION IN TONS
Next table shows the same allocation in
tons. Here those Contracting Parties with
negative allocation get a TAC of zero tons
(area by area). As the sum of positive
allocations is more than 100, the
allocations are adjusted to a sum 100 by
down grading all with the same proportion.
The difference is the new allocation minus
the old allocation.
Allocation (t) of the Baltic herring TAC by IBSFC Contracting Party
and by the Management Areas
IBSFC
Allocation
TAC (t)
143 000
Estonia
14 500
Denmark,
Finland,
Germany,
Sweden
Differen
ce (t)
22-24
2529S+32
Gulf of
Riga
46000
62000
35000
-60
0
335
14 105
78 579
-5 743
40 715
32 121
0
Latvia
9 810
11 085
0
0
20 895
Lithuania
3 060
-464
0
2 596
0
Poland
28 800
-3 567
5 285
19 948
0
Russia
8 251
-1 251
0
7 000
0
ALLOCATION IN €
Table shows the allocations in €. The prices are
weighted by the area TACs and prices per ton
are different in each area. The difference is the
new allocation minus the old allocation. Note
that the TAC difference can be 0 while the value
in € is different from 0. In this example made for
illustrative purposes only, Latvia would gain
about 2 059 260 €, while all other Contracting
Parties will be among the losers.
Allocation (value in €) of the Baltic herring TAC
by IBSFC Contracting Party and by the
management units
IBSFC
Allocation Difference
(€)
(€)
22-24
TAC
value
11 500
000
12 400
000
7 000 000
-245 208
0
67 052
2 821 000
16 979
550
-376 722
10 178
650
6 424 178
0
2 119 740
2 059 260
0
0
4 179 000
661 260
-142 051
0
519 209
0
Poland
6 223 260
-912 272
1 321 350
3 989 638
0
Russia
1 782 930
-383 007
0
1 399 923
0
Estonia
Denmark,
Finland,
Germany,
Sweden
Latvia
Lithuania
30 900
000
Gulf of
25-29S+32 Riga
3 133 260
TRADING SCHEME
If a scheme with strong equity is
introduced then this must be associated
with a trading scheme allowing those
countries that have fishing rights but no
access to the area to trade these rights
with countries that have free fishing
capacity and access to the areas. The
interesting problem is: what is the value of
a quota without access rights.
Negotiating positions for seller-buyer of fishing rights
assuming that the seller if he has access right also
have fishing capacity available
Value to buyer
Value to seller
With Access
rights
With
Surplus
fishing
capacity
With access
rights
Without
Surplus fishing
capacity
Without
access right
Full market
value
Nil
Nil
With access
rights
Full Market
value
Full market
prices
No deal
No deal
Without access
rights
Nil
Reduced
market price
No deal
No deal
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
In practise there could only be two
solutions possible:
1) strong equity without regard for access
and combined with trading or swapping
of quota rights or
2) an allocation scheme based on upper
bound equity either defined as an
absolute upper bound or a relative upper
bound.
CONCLUSIONS
1)
2)
3)
4)
If a scheme with strong equity is introduced then the
revised management system should include the following
elements:
existing allocation key is applied to all herring
stocks/management units, i.e. herring allocation for the
subdivisions 22-29S and 32 would apply to all herring
management units into which this area might be split;
access right to fishing area be made explicit in the
system;
present system for quota swaps will be used to ensure
efficient use of the fishing capacity;
system with prices for each herring stock/management
unit will be agreed for use in quota swaps.
Implementation of upper bound equity imply the political
solution.
RFERENCES
R. Aps, H. Lassen, J.C. Rice, K. Andrejeva4 and J. Aps. Re-allocation of the
Baltic herring fishing possibilities.Proc.Estonian Acad.Sci.Biol.Ecol. 2004,
53, 4, 306-316
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research and development. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent
Systems, 1(1):7.38, 1998b. URL
citeseer.ist.psu.edu/jennings98roadmap.html.
Leen-Kiat Soh and Xin Li. Adaptive, Confidence-Based Multiagent
Negotiation Strategy. AAMAS'04, July 19-23, New York NY, USA, 2004.
I. Rahwan, P. McBurney, and L. Sonenberg. Bargaining and argumentbased negotiation: Some preliminary comparisons. In P. M. I. Rahwan and
C. Reed, editors, Proceedings of the AAMAS First International Workshop
on Argumentation in Multi-Agent Systems (ArgMAS), New York NY, USA,
2004.
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