آیا کوچکترین کشتی های ماهیگیری پایدار ترین هستند؟ تجزیه و تحلیل تجارت کردن ویژگی های پایداری

This article discusses application of systems engineering principles and trade-off analysis of sustainability in the fishing fleet. Sustainability in the fishing fleet may be characterized by seven attributes measured by performance indicators. Evaluations show that the energy consumption is higher for the Norwegian ocean going fleet than the coastal fleet, whereas the opposite is the case for the number of fatalities. An important part of the systems engineering process is analysis and optimization of system alternatives. Thus, the main objective of the article is to investigate ranking of the sustainability attributes, which implies use of multi-attribute decision-making methods. The analytic hierarchy process was used to interview stakeholders to the fishing fleet about their preferences. The article concludes that if “accident risk” is weighted as the most important attribute, the smallest fishing vessels are not as sustainable as often claimed.

Sustainable resource management is an important objective in most fisheries [1]. Overcapacity in the fishing fleet is one of the major threats to sustainability, because it leads to more effective fishing vessels and gear, which again increase the pressure on quota limits [2] and [3]. The main disciplines involved in fisheries management are bio-economics and social sciences. Still, overcapacity is also a technological problem, which implies a stronger integration of technological aspects into fisheries management [4]. Systems engineering has been introduced as a feasible process for handling sustainability issues in the fisheries [5] and [6]. The concept of sustainability is vague, and various interpretations appear in discussions about which fishing vessels are the most sustainable [7]. With respect to reductions of overcapacity in the fishing fleet, the system alternatives, which in this case are the different vessel groups, may give advantages and disadvantages. Fisheries management decisions impact a range of stakeholders with interests in the fisheries, and conflicting situations may occur, especially when considering complex issues like sustainability: one type of fishing technology may give higher income, but fewer employees. Another solution may improve safety, but also increase emissions of CO2CO2. In the systems engineering process, examining alternative solutions and finding the best one imply that trade-off analysis is carried out in an iterative loop until the best solution is found [5]. Trade-off analysis of sustainability in the Norwegian cod-fishing fleet is discussed in this article, as a further elaboration of systems engineering principles related to the fisheries [5]. The trade-off analysis is based on the results from a performance evaluation of the vessel groups in the cod-fisheries [6]. Multi-criteria decision analysis is evaluated on the basis of usefulness for assessing attributes of sustainability, and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to visualize the consequences of trade-off decisions, and to show the importance of stakeholder inclusion in the decision-making process. The article also discusses how sustainability in the fishing fleet may be measured and evaluated on a regular basis, by using an index of sustainability. The system boundary is limited to the fishing vessels in the operational phase, representing the technological system interacting with the natural marine ecosystem. 1.1. Attributes of sustainability in the Norwegian cod-fishing fleet Sustainable development may be characterized by three dimensions: the ecological, social, and economic dimension. In order to find out more about sustainability in the fishing fleet, the performance of the Norwegian cod-fishing fleet was evaluated at six attributes: accident risk, employment, profitability, quality of the fish meat, catch capacity (technical), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions/acidification [6], shown in Fig. 1. The selection of the attributes used to assess the various vessel groups is very important, because some attributes may favor one vessel group at the expense of others. The attributes were selected based on government objectives of sustainable resource management found in Table 1.From the system boundaries, it may be questioned if bycatch/selection is a relevant attribute since it mainly impacts on the natural marine ecosystem. Nevertheless, bycatch may affect profitability of the fishing vessel, and selection may impact fuel consumption. Bycatch/selection has also been considered in other environmental analyses of fisheries [8]. The main results from the system evaluation are summarized in Table 2. The attributes have been evaluated by using performance indicators. The attribute “accident risk” is measured by the fatal accident rate (FAR), and “employment” is measured by “average man-labor years per vessel”. “Profitability” is measured by “earning capacity, NOK/kg fish”, and “quality” is assessed by damage to the fish meat by the catching gear, and prices paid per kg fish. “Catch capacity” is measured by technical parameters, such as length and gross tonnage weight in the statistics from the Directorate of the Fisheries [11], [12] and [13], and “GHG emissions/acidification” is measured by the indicator “kg fuel/kg fish”.Vessel groups A–E are in accordance with the cod-fishing vessel groups in the statistics from the Norwegian Directorate of the Fisheries from 2003 and onwards [11], [12] and [13] according to length (ℓℓ) and type: The smallest vessels, groups A and B, have the highest FAR, the lowest average employment per vessel, the highest earning capacity, the lowest catch capacity, and the lowest fuel consumption. Quality of the fish meat is assessed by asking stakeholders. The attributes quality and catch capacity are ranked according to their degree of goal achievement, with an equal distance between the scores. This means that, in Table 2, the score 5 does not indicate a “5 times lower catch capacity” [6]. The quality of the fish meat and the amount of bycatch depend on the use of gear. In vessel group A, for instance, the vessels use several types of gear, also in combination. The issue of quality is complex, and, in the recent years, frozen fish has achieved the highest prices [14]. Even though there are attempts of improving the quality of the fish caught in the Norwegian fisheries, e.g., the “Røst-project” [15] and [16], the quality problem should be further investigated. For bycatch/selection, the attribute which has been added in this article and thus is not shown in Table 2, long-lining and trawl are usually the most affected gears in the cod-fishing fleet [8]. The way the information is presented in Table 2 makes it difficult to assess which of the vessel groups are more sustainable than the others, because the performance indicators are measured in different units. It is also difficult to assess whether the overall level of sustainability of the fishing fleets is increasing or decreasing. Thus, a systematic approach to decision-making and trade-off analysis is discussed in the next section.

A lot of information is available about the Norwegian fisheries, but the data are not presented in a format suitable for evaluating the performance of fisheries management related to goal achievement over time. If the fishing fleets are to become more sustainable, fisheries management should be able to evaluate the effectiveness of its objectives. Use of performance indicators and indices, for example, those shown in Tables 2 and 8, may facilitate such evaluations. In systems engineering, the process of identifying performance indicators is based on determining the requirements to the system, in this case a sustainable fishing fleet. The Norwegian fisheries management aims at reducing overcapacity through structural changes. The effects of such efforts should be monitored in order to evaluate their consequences against management objectives. Effective implementation presupposes that the efforts increase sustainability in the fishing fleets. Evaluating sustainability in the fishing fleet is difficult, especially because the different fleets do not have the same framework conditions. Still, the results from the AHP evaluation show that the selection of attributes is very important. If the concept of “sustainability” is just related to fuel consumption and biological impact, such as bycatch and selection, the smallest vessels may be the most sustainable. However, the largest vessels may be more sustainable if “accident risk” is weighted highest. Maybe one of the most intriguing issues that came out of the stakeholder involvement was that most of them rated the attribute “accident risk” the highest. Thus, it is a paradox that the fisheries continue to have such a high FAR value, higher than most other occupations. Even though fishing has always been an activity involving risk, it is incomprehensible that there still is such a high risk in the fishing fleet. Government policies are often formed through intense debates and compromise. The stated goals may be a mixture of multiple and competing goals. The AHP may be used as a performance measurement instrument by incorporating assessment attributes or performance indicators into the problem hierarchy in order to compare the actual performance of a system with its desired performance. The process of using AHP in the interviews of and questionnaires to the stakeholders has given a good foundation for further investigations of stakeholder involvement in fisheries management decision-making. In addition, this article has visualized and evaluated some important attributes of sustainability in the cod-fishing fleets, which may contribute to a better decision basis for fisheries management.