7

Broader Community Social and Economic Effects

APPROACHES TO BROADER COMMUNITY

Fisheries are complex socioecological systems, and changes within those fisheries, whether prompted by management measures, market forces, or other internal and external factors, affect and are affected by far more than the immediate participants. In that regard, the committee is charged to examine the effects of Limited Access Privilege Programs (LAPPs) in mixed-use fisheries on the “broader community.” The committee takes this to mean how the social and economic effects identified in previous chapters lead to other consequences for the broader community.

There are several ways of approaching the study of effects on the “broader community.” Very few studies provide a comprehensive perspective on fisheries that enable delineation of their broader contexts, constraints, and consequences. One approach is to identify and study the impacts of management changes on the commodity or supply chain that links fish in the sea to consumers (Seung, 2016; Seung and Kim, 2020). Commercial fisheries, in particular, tend to be part of fairly durable and structured networks of provision, supply, and demand, such that changes in one component can have regular or predictable changes in another. Suppliers of credit and government subsidies and regulations and, for some fisheries, international negotiations are also part of this larger system. The only studies that trace such networks or supply chains for the mixed-use fisheries of this study identified by the committee are those of the global network for bluefin tuna, which include distinct species of Atlantic, Pacific, and southern bluefin. Although these studies highlight the interpersonal and social dimensions of the international management system (Telesca, 2020), as well as the role of futures markets and subsidies in contributing to overexploitation (Bestor, 2001; Longo et al., 2015; Telesca, 2020), they offer little about how changes in the U.S. component of bluefin tuna management affects the larger system. A recent study of eastern Atlantic bluefin shows that open access continues to characterize the overall pattern of overexploitation and stock dynamics (Li et al., 2021). As such, recent improvements in the stock condition are not attributable to a break from open access. Rather, reduced pressure on the bluefin tuna resource is associated with management systems that raised the effective cost of open access fishing during a period when global prices for bluefin tuna also declined.

The reviews of the LAPPs do not assess the effects of LAPPs on supply chains or larger markets, beyond providing data on ex-vessel prices that may or may not signal shifts in market conditions in response to the working of LAPPs (see Chapter 5). The review of the grouper-tilefish individual fishing quota (IFQ; Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, 2018a) notes that this is difficult because no data on retail sales of the IFQ-regulated species are collected. However, some of the reviews refer to the importance of domestic and foreign markets, the effects of which contribute to the difficulty of determining the impacts of LAPPs per se. The leading example is bluefin tuna, where the decline of participation in the pelagic longline fishery (that is involved in individual bycatch quotas) is best attributed to market conditions in the international trade for swordfish and tunas.

A second way of approaching “broader effects” generates estimates of economic value based on multiplier effects, such that the ex-vessel price of fish at the dock gains from added value as it moves through the system. This is central to regional economic modeling for fisheries (Seung and Waters, 2006) and is used for recreational fisheries as well as commercial fisheries. Keithly and Roberts (2017) provide an overview of the economics of both commercial and recreational fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico from the perspective of expenditures and multiplier effects. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) publishes Fisheries Economics of the United States, which includes these “economic impact” metrics, including employment, sales, and value-added impacts of fisheries. In addition, the National Ocean Economics Project¹ provides economic and demographic information on changes and trends along U.S. coasts and coastal waters, including nonmarket valuation research on the recreational fisheries. As useful as these sources are for estimating economic impacts of commercial and recreational fisheries, broadly defined, they are not at the scale or level of detail appropriate to the analysis of impacts of particular management innovations such as LAPPs on particular fisheries.

In the rest of this chapter, the committee follows the practice of the formal LAPP reviews in taking a third, place-based, approach to the question of the impacts of LAPPs on communities. The committee focuses on geographically defined communities, usually coastal municipalities and larger regions, and the place and impacts of fisheries in the demographics, economics, quality of life, institutions, and other attributes of these places. National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (the MSA) recognizes the importance of providing for the sustained participation of place-based fishing communities that are substantially engaged in and/ or dependent on fisheries and minimizing adverse impacts on such communities.² A place-based notion of community also allows for use of regularly collected census and labor data. It benefits from NOAA’s investment in gathering data for profiling communities and assessing attributes that can be related to the health and dynamics of fisheries (Jepson and Colburn, 2013).

Macinko (2007) discusses considerations for understanding place and community in fisheries management. Fishing livelihoods are often deeply connected to geographic places. It should be acknowledged that fishing communities, as thought of and experienced by participants in fisheries and increasingly acknowledged in the literature, can also be occupation-based networks involving multiple places, reflecting social capital and shared experiences, interests, and values. A survey of commercial groundfish fishers in New England (Holland et al., 2013) found that respondents defined their fishing communities in multiple ways, mostly in terms of where they tied up their vessels and landed their fish (the place-based communities). Also near the top of the definitions offered was “the fishermen who fish in the same area you fish” (p. 139, Table 1) irrespective of homeport or place of residence. Gear- or species-based and regional communities of this kind are important as sites of information exchange, mutual support, and other forms of social interaction

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¹See https://www.oceaneconomics.org (accessed July 16, 2021).

²16 U.S.C. § 1851(a)(8).

that make up a community (see St. Martin and Olson, 2017, on “communities at sea”). The value of information exchange, especially as it relates to place-based fish dealers, was also supported in studies of the trading markets for red snapper allocation (Ropicki and Larkin, 2014).

Furthermore, evidence of community-level representation may appear as interest groups and organized stakeholders in fisheries management. This type of stakeholder engagement may be of particular importance in analyzing the effects of LAPPs in mixed-use and other fisheries. In theory, the creation of secure and valuable exclusive fishing privileges that are not connected to place may foster the development of organized groups that become more vested in fisheries management and research (Scott, 1996), as has been shown in New Zealand (Yandle, 2003). Groups like the Shareholders Alliance of the Gulf of Mexico, created to represent the interests of IFQ shareholders in the reef fish fisheries, may be effective in influencing policy, as have been groups organized to represent the interests of other sectors, particularly recreational fishing, as discussed in Chapter 6.

It is also important to keep in mind the actual structure and dynamics of the interest groups that represent the sectors. The committee is not aware of focused research into this question in the study region, except for a survey-based study on the red snapper fishery that distinguished between the “recreational sector” and “recreational industry” (Hervás Ávila, 2018). The study pointed out that the industry was large and powerful, referred to as “super stakeholders,” and was often driving agendas that were viewed by some respondents as misaligned with the interests and attitudes of private anglers. For example, the survey showed that “recreational anglers on average were very precautionary with respect to fishing regulations, whereas the ‘super stakeholders’ took stances that prioritized access for recreational fishers over science-based conservation measures.” The majority of anglers also supported the right to fish for commercial fishers, whereas the vocal leaders of the recreational industry advocated measures to reduce commercial fishing, fueling conflict in mixed-use fisheries.

Community Concerns and LAPPs

Community concerns were important in the process of development of the LAPP provisions for the 2006 MSA Reauthorization by Congress. Stoll and Holliday (2014) quote a 2006 report prepared by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on the MSA, where it writes:

This aligns with the allocation requirements specified in Section 1853a(c)(5) (see Chapter 2, Box 2.2), which directs the Councils or the Secretary of Commerce to “consider the basic cultural and social framework of the fishery … through the development of policies to promote the sustained participation of small owner-operated fishing vessels and fishing communities,” “include measures to assist, when necessary and appropriate, entry-level and small vessel owner-operators, captains, crew, and fishing communities through set-asides of harvesting allocation,” and “ensure that limited access privilege holders do not acquire an excessive share of the total limited access privileges in the program.” They conclude that this language (e.g., Section 1853a(c)(3), (4), and (5)), coupled with National Standard 8, provides a clear signal to the Councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to consider community safeguards that support small-scale and community-based interests.

It should be noted that Sections 3 and 4 of Section 303A(c) lay out a framework for allocating catch shares to community-based entities (“fishing communities” and “regional fishery associations” rather than individuals). However, as of 2014, the Councils had yet to adopt processes to establish fishing communities and regional fishery associations—entities for holding catch shares (Stoll and Holliday, 2014)—except for the Community Development Quota and Community Quota Entity programs in the North Pacific, and none have occurred in the study regions since that date. The LAPPs of this study are IFQs for individual entities rather than catch shares for communities or nonprofit associations.

In theory, the effects of LAPPs on the fisheries (see Chapters 4, 5, and 6) can ripple into larger communities. Any positive or negative effects of LAPPs on private and for-hire recreational fisheries could affect ancillary businesses, such as marinas and fishing supply houses. Downsizing of commercial fishing enterprises and fleets, an objective of many LAPPs, can reduce employment, hurt ancillary businesses, reduce commercial footprint in waterfronts vulnerable to gentrification, and so forth. Alternatively, increased profitability and more consistent employment associated with LAPPs could inject more economic value into local communities and associated ancillary businesses. Sharper social distinctions that may emerge, such as between those who hold quota shares and those who do not, can result in conflict within communities that have shared fishing identities and are tightly networked. Increased profitability of enterprises well situated in their LAPPs can benefit some local communities at the expense of others. Where quota shares come to be owned by outside investors or retired fishers, much of that wealth is likely to go elsewhere. Small-scale fishers that were not granted quota shares in the initial allocation and/or are unable to acquire IFQs (such as through lack of access to capital) may move into or intensify their effort in other fisheries, with possible pressures on those fisheries, or may not be able to continue fishing livelihoods, with impacts for the next generation.

More generally, changes that occur with LAPPs can affect both the structure and viability of regions and communities, as shown in reviews of IFQ programs in Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States, among other countries (e.g., Carothers and Chambers, 2012; McCormack, 2017; Olson, 2011; Young et al., 2018). Fishing livelihoods have traditionally been deeply embedded in fishing communities and central to fishing families’ and communities’ connection to place and well-being. As a result, the shift in management to regulating fishing rights as commodities that can be detached from place can fundamentally restructure fishery systems with implications for community life. LAPPs can affect community structure “through changing relations between people and shifts in dominant values—and affect the viability of fishing communities as some are disproportionately impacted by geographic shifts in fishing businesses, aspiring new participants find entry increasingly difficult and smaller operations are increasing [sic] dominated by larger ones” (Olson, 2011). “Graying of the fleet” and rural-to-urban migration of fishing quota is a common trend in many LAPP fisheries (e.g., Coleman et al., 2018; Cramer et al., 2018; Donkersloot and Carothers, 2016; Karlsdóttir, 2008; NOAA Fisheries, 2010; Ringer et al., 2018). Lost access to fishing livelihoods can affect community, family, and individual health and wellness. In regions with long-time experience with LAPPs they are often still viewed as divisive and negative within fishing communities even decades after program implementation (e.g., Carothers, 2015; Chambers and Carothers, 2017; McCormack, 2017; Wingard, 2000).

The committee discusses elsewhere in the report the importance of consideration of counterfactual scenarios. Would these community impacts have occurred without LAPPs? Some impacts are directly related to the creation of the LAPPs (e.g., community conflict about who got access and who did not. But other impacts are less clear. The committee received a presentation on such a counterfactual case in Alaska. The community of Metlakatla experienced some of the negative community effects found with LAPPs in state and federal fisheries; however, the Metlakatla Indian Community manages its own sovereign Tribal fisheries, which are not managed with LAPPs. Their

community engagement in fishing and local fishing economy is substantially different than that of similarly sized communities in the Gulf of Alaska, as is youth engagement in fishing (Langdon, 2019; Metlakatla Indian Community, 2017).

There is very little research in this regard for the LAPPs and mixed-use fisheries of this study. The mandated LAPP reviews have little to report about effects on communities despite the guidance (Morrison, 2017b). The NOAA Social Indicators for Coastal Communities (SICC) data developed in recent decades have good design features for assessing impacts, in efforts to code places in terms of fishing dependence, engagement, and vulnerability, but, as will be discussed below, they are not yet systematically developed to enable examination of trends that might suggest effects of changes in fisheries governance. Therefore, the committee is limited to identifying the major communities involved and their degrees of fishing dependency, engagement, and vulnerability (not always with regard to the particular LAPP fishery), supplemented by insights from surveys, LAPP review observations, and other studies.

PLACE-BASED COMMUNITIES

Place-based communities are recognized in federal fisheries because National Standard 8 requires “that an FMP take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities,”³ with the goals to “(1) Provide for the sustained participation of such communities; and (2) To the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.” The MSA defines fishing community as “a community which is substantially dependent on or substantially engaged in the harvest or processing of fishery resources to meet social and economic needs, and includes fishing vessel owners, operators, and crew and United States fish processors that are based in such a community.”⁴ In interpreting this definition, the National Marine Fisheries Service has stated that

Limiting an analysis to fishing communities as defined above misses many places where fishers and their families reside but which are not “substantially dependent on or ... engaged in” fisheries because of other types of business and ways of life. The committee follows the NOAA practice of looking more broadly at community, in terms of engagement in the fisheries at any level, regardless of degree of dependence, while retaining a focus on communities with higher degrees of engagement as particularly worthy of attention. This is important in the northeast and southeast coastal regions of the United States, where towns and ports are often as much or more dependent on tourism and retirement living as on commercial or recreational fishing, even when they retain strong fisheries and perhaps identities as fishing communities. Taking this broader perspective, social scientists at NOAA have developed “Community Profiles” or “Snapshots” of communities involved in the fisheries of all regions that can be found on the NOAA website.⁵

Data on place-based fishing communities are available in the community profiles in greater detail in the reviews of the LAPPs that incorporate NOAA’s community profiles and social indicators, and in a NOAA study of the community dimensions of U.S. catch share programs (Colburn et al., 2017). In the latter, social indicators of fishing community vulnerability and resilience were

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³50 C.F.R. § 600.345.

⁴16 U.S.C. § 1802(17).

⁵See https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/socioeconomics/fishing-community-profiles (accessed July 16, 2021).

generated for each catch share program, including the LAPPs in this study except for the bluefin tuna individual bluefin quota (IBQ), using the criteria and methods developed by NOAA (Jepson and Colburn, 2013). “Community” is basically the homeport of vessels engaged in the fisheries being studied, irrespective of where those involved in the fishery actually live, what fishing grounds they more often use, and where the vessels actually land their catches. Consequently, this approach is limited in its ability to capture information about all of the places affected by those who fish and the social relationships connecting places. It also cannot reveal commodity chain relationships and regional dynamics.

This approach offers descriptive measures of the ports that appear important to a fishery or fishery management system. Regional quotients measure what share a particular place has in landings for a species or species complex, identifying the communities that stand out as particularly important. A community vulnerability index is based on measures of the extent of both engagement in and reliance on commercial and recreational fishing. A resilience index is based on a set of indices of social vulnerability involving personal disruption, population composition, poverty, housing, and labor force measures. The analyses also provide indices for social vulnerability and environmental justice indicators, an important but often overlooked dimension of fisheries (Jepson and Colburn, 2013). These analyses are especially important, given “the tendency for ITQs to exclude indigenous peoples or those who are otherwise marginalized politically and economically due to structural factors, such as racism” (Young et al., 2018). Analyses of racial and environmental justice are likely to become more central with NOAA Fisheries’ Human Integrated Ecosystem Based Fishery Management, Research Strategy and the Biden administration’s Executive Order (EO) 13985 and reinvigoration of EO 12898.

The SICC are helpful in identifying communities for further assessment of impacts of changes in a fishery and could be used for outreach to ensure appropriate representation in the participatory parts of management processes. They are available in a systematic time series for the period 2006 to 2018. For the specific LAPP fisheries of this study, they are available only to 2013 in the NOAA study “Community Participation in Catch Share Programs” (Colburn et al., 2017), which is a key source of data for this analysis.

Although the community profiles can provide a time series enabling comparison of indices from a baseline (usually 2006-2008) that may capture the implementation of LAPPs, they may be limited in identifying causal links between such changes or patterns and reasons for observed changes connected to specific fisheries and specific management measures. Effects of individual policies on whole communities are not likely to be substantial enough to be identified in community-level indices.

Information on recreational fisheries engagement and reliance is part of the community profiles, but changes in variables such as employment cannot be sorted out between recreational and commercial fisheries. The issue of impacts of LAPPs in mixed-use fisheries on communities could address relationships between the commercial LAPP fisheries and the for-hire and private recreational fisheries, in terms of access to and competition for infrastructure, municipal support, and

community institutions. The committee has not been able to find information on this except for limited early studies. Clearly, many of the major ports for the commercial LAPP fisheries also have sizable for-hire and/or private angling-related businesses (e.g., Montauk, New York; Fort Pierce, Florida; and Barnegat Light, New Jersey, among others), and a study done in the 1990s described relationships between commercial and recreational fishers in the fishing communities engaged in swordfish, tuna, and shark fisheries (Wilson and McCay, 1998).

The environmental justice indices of the SICC lack sufficient granularity, reflecting a more general problem in assessing social and community fisheries impacts, namely, the lack of data on ethnicity, race, age, and many other sociodemographic aspects of people who fish for a living or work in other sectors of the fisheries. The community studies are the only systematic sources of information of this kind but their indices are quite general and in most cases not specific to particular fisheries. Moreover, the focus on major fishing communities can miss fisheries that are dispersed among many places. Nor do they capture the actual dynamics of the fisheries associated with the communities, for example, the extent to which people are engaged in more than one fishery or whether crew members commute over long distances. These studies also can miss important social groups involved in a fishery that may be dispersed among many places, as, for example, the low-income Vietnamese American fishers in Louisiana who are active in the Gulf of Mexico pelagic longline fishery but commute to fishing ports (NMFS, 2019).

The next section of this chapter reviews the information available on place-based communities involved with the mixed-use fisheries of this study, framed by the committee’s concern that there is little information available to assess what differences the LAPPs have made. It is followed by a committee effort to use the NOAA social indicators data to see whether it can tell us anything useful about the effects of LAPPs on one dimension of community—employment—as the basis for a discussion of potentials for better assessing community impacts of changes in fisheries management.

COMMUNITIES BY FISHERY

Red Snapper (Gulf of Mexico)

The red snapper fishery of the Gulf of Mexico is large overall and is very much a “mixed-use” fishery, with major for-hire and private angler sectors. It is a component of the very large reef fish fishery in the Gulf of Mexico and closely related to the grouper-tilefish IFQ program.

The 5-year review had little information on the social and economic effects on communities of the IFQ program for red snapper but made an effort to discuss both “suggested” and “revealed” social impacts of IFQ measures. They state: “a comprehensive study of the social impacts resulting from implementation of the RS-IFQ program has not been conducted due to limitations of time and personnel.” A key question they would like to explore: “How have fishing communities and fish houses been affected by the RS-IFQ program?” For the most part, their treatment of community impacts overlaps with the analysis of effects of LAPPs on the commercial sector found in Chapter 5, with a stronger emphasis on social concerns than on the economic benefits.

As discussed in Chapters 3 and 5, reduced overcapacity is likely to have affected employment, but the extent of employment change was unknown. There were reports of reduced crew size in some vessels, especially the small and medium-sized operations and in the western Gulf, but total days fished in the fishery increased after declining initially (Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, 2013), and the effects of the LAPP cannot be easily isolated from changes in the annual catch limit. “We are currently unable to measure direct impacts from any reductions in overcapacity at the community level” (p. 32). Similarly, there was no empirical evidence for positive or negative community effects of elimination of “derby fishing” and of share consolidation, although public comment indicated that further consolidation may “be a barrier to access for others and have nega-

tive impacts for some communities” (pp. 32-33) even though no evidence of excessive consolidation was found and a cap on share ownership is in effect.

Treated as a community impact in the 5-year review was the emergence of new participants in the fishery: brokers involved in managing trading. Some shareholder accounts were known to be involved only in trading, approximately 20-27% of accounts annually (p. 56). The review reported awareness that the program is criticized for creating a class of shareholders who did not fish, “who live off the profits of leasing allocation,” but stated it was unknown how important this was. By leasing out annual allocation, perhaps because they do not own a reef fish permit, these shareholders allow flexibility for harvesters to adjust their scale of operations.

The review recognized that there were perceptions of other unfair and unequal outcomes, based on studies by Alsharif and Miller (2012), Boen and Keithly (2012), and Griffith et al. (2016). One was the difference between shareholders with small allocations and those with larger IFQs. There were also allegations that some boat owners charged the crew for purchase of allocation and the perception of “sea lords” living off the work of others. Smaller shareholders were perceived to have been negatively impacted as well those in the eastern Gulf. The west coast of Florida was identified as a region that was allocated relatively little quota share due to low historic harvests but now has abundant red snapper. Social network analysis was done to better understand share and allocation trades but was unable to test these and other allegations with the data (Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, 2013), recognizing that the computer system created for managing the IFQs was not created to answer such questions. One complication is that shareholders can move quota between multiple accounts. A later study focusing on price dispersion across the fishery, also using social network analysis, found inefficiencies in the trading markets due to regionality in information sharing and as a result of the noncentralized nature of the transfer markets that rely on individual negotiation that would need to be learned by new participants in the market (Ropicki and Larkin, 2014).

The review further addressed community impacts by looking at patterns and changes in fishing engagement in terms of pounds and dollars using the SICC. It identified the top 20 homeports and found little change in the fisheries engagement measure over 10 years for the largest communities identified: Panama City, Florida; Galveston, Texas; Golden Meadow, Louisiana; Destin, Florida; and Cameron, Louisiana (Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, 2013). However, there was considerable change among the communities with lower degrees of engagement in some years, some showing precipitous decline (Golden Meadow/Leeville, Louisiana; Grand Bay, Alabama; and Port Isabel, Texas) while others showed an increase (Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Houma, Louisiana) (see Figure 7.1). Similar analyses were done for indices of community vulnerability and resilience. For example, it was determined that the communities of Apalachicola, Florida; Panama City, Florida; and Golden Meadow, Louisiana, exhibited vulnerabilities to social or economic disruption, including regulatory change.

With these data, it was not possible to test whether the changes were related to the LAPP, such as reductions in inputs or consolidation of share ownership. Ethnographic research is important to interpret these graphs. For example, social scientists explained that one small community that showed sharp decline did so simply because a fleet of vessels simply moved to another port (M. Jepson, personal communication during Open Session Meeting, 2021).

Grouper-Tilefish (Gulf of Mexico)

The grouper-tilefish IFQ is closely linked with the red snapper IFQ, with some overlap in participation. A greater effort was given toward examining the social and economic effects of the grouper-tilefish IFQ for the 5-year review. Its review offers the only comprehensive effort to capture social and community dimensions. It uses an updated version of the Colburn et al. (2017) study of

community engagement, regional and local quotients, social vulnerability, and resilience. In addition, there was a captain and crew survey (ECS Federal Inc. et al., 2017), a survey of shareholding participants (QuanTech, Inc., 2015), and, uniquely, a large ethnographic study focusing on particular communities (Griffith et al., 2016).

The results are mainly focused on socioeconomic impacts on participants in the fisheries, reported in Chapter 5, rather than on communities per se. But some community members expressed the view that separating ownership from active participation (the “armchair captain”) is counter to their community values—and there are perceptions that labor relations seem changed for the worse on the boats, where captains and crews become more like “sharecroppers,” working on someone else’s property for a small share of the harvest, rather than full co-venturers with the owners. These can be construed as community matters in the sense of the local culture of shared expectations, values, and history. While the “sharecropper” metaphor may be problematic—given that the crew worked on shares with the owner before the LAPPs—it may be interpreted as expressing dissatisfaction with new relations of ownership and work. Fairness of initial allocation is a related issue. Unlike the operation of tradable LAPPs, the initial allocations are indeed zero sum. One fisher’s share is a share that another does not receive.

An important economic context for expressions of perceived inequity is seller’s remorse. To the extent that consolidation of share ownership has occurred after the formation of LAPPs—which the empirical evidence in Chapter 5 suggests is not large enough in magnitude in the study fisheries to affect market power—it comes about when participants sell shares and exit the fishery. Selling shares is a bet on the future, and when the share price or the lease price increases, it is not surprising that sellers would have remorse just as they would when selling property or a financial asset that subsequently increases in value. Share values for a number of fisheries, particularly red snapper, have increased. It is plausible that some individuals who sold their shares would interpret the outcome as unfair when in actuality they simply guessed wrong. Alternatively, it is possible that these sellers did not have the information or tools needed to calculate the fair market value of this new type of financial asset (e.g., Ropicki and Larkin, 2015), or to find a trading partner and negotiate a good price given the large and unrestricted trading region.

Differing views on consolidation are another example. Griffith et al. (2016) argued that community concerns about consolidation of ownership and incentives for greater specialization be understood in relation to the widely shared history of diverse, multispecies, and multigear fisheries—the small-scale fisheries identified by Congress as worthy of consideration. Another cultural matter reflecting community identity and values were concerns people shared about how long commercial fishing would continue, given aging fishers and barriers to entry, including share costs, which resulted in fewer young fishers. However, aging of fishing fleets is a widely documented global phenomenon, so the counterfactual for evaluating the effects of a LAPP on aging of the participants would need to account for this reality.

Although the NOAA SICC-based study of community engagement, vulnerability, and resilience (Colburn et al., 2017) included coded measures of recreational fisheries, the committee found no documents on their place in local communities, and the committee heard nothing in its meetings about effects of LAPPs on the recreational dimensions of communities.

Central and Southwest Florida

Exemplifying the strength of ethnographic research in better depicting community aspects of fisheries, Overbey (2016) carried out open-ended interviews with participants in the grouper-tilefish IFQ program in central and southwest Florida, the major center of grouper fishing. She found that the fishing communities are characterized by strong historic and family ties to the fisheries, which are made up of fishing enterprises, dealers, and owners and managers of seafood markets and restaurants. Individuals may assume multiple roles in these aspects of the fisheries, and these are often family businesses. Generally, fishers often own one or two vessels, usually using bandit or rod and reel vertical methods to harvest multiple species, although the larger-scale enterprises may be longlining offshore. Women have visible and important roles in all aspects of the fishery and are recognized as key business leaders and partners (Overbey, 2016). Finally, and central to how people experience and evaluate IFQs, “[a] value for independence, an ethic of hard work, and historic family ties to fishing draw and keep these individuals in the fishery. Holding shares and allocation instills confidence and ensures their success” (Overbey, 2016).

Overbey (2016) found virtually unanimous approval of the grouper-tilefish IFQ program for the flexibility and autonomy created, which fit well with the value of independence, the value that drew and has held many in this livelihood. However, there were major concerns expressed by large and small participants alike, including the problem of regulatory discards of red snapper due to the scarcity of red snapper shares in the eastern Gulf, and the effects of the initial allocation and subsequent trading on creation of sharp distinctions between “winners” and “losers,” with concern that a few of the winners can exert undue control over leasing costs. A big issue, given the timing of the research, in 2016, 1 year after “public” shareholding was allowed in the grouper-tilefish LAPP, was the prospect that the influx of ownership of shares from the outside would worsen the situation for fishers, increasing the cost of leasing and elevating fears of a takeover by a few wealthy companies or individuals.

A major theme in all of the regional studies (Griffith et al., 2016) concerns the future of the fisheries and their place within communities. The cost of buying or leasing IFQs makes entry difficult for the young; it also contributes to problems experienced getting and keeping good captains and crews, because of the effects of the cost of leasing and the 3% recovery fee on their incomes, all of which suggest, to many people interviewed, that fishing is a “dying industry.” The creation of clear differences between “winners” and “losers” also threatens social and economic relationships in once tightly networked communities. Here the counterfactual is important. Claims of high cost of entry are not based on a comparison to a counterfactual fishery without a LAPP and thus are difficult to evaluate. Lee and Thunberg (2013) simulate a counterfactual New England groundfish

fishery that maintained days-at-sea regulation rather than adopting the LAPP. Although consumer welfare declined under both the LAPP and days at sea, welfare losses were greater without the LAPP. Moreover, competitive pressures from imports and other features of globalization could also result in impressions of a dying industry in the absence of a LAPP. Finally, derby-style fisheries with quota overages and associated stock declines could accelerate decline of the industry, whereas the LAPP could slow the decline.

The effects of the grouper-tilefish IFQ program on communities are both positive and worrisome. The positive effects are seen in the two largest fishing communities, Madeira Beach and Cortez, where increased value of grouper, now available year round and touted as a major tourist dining experience, has enabled expansion and new investment in fish houses and associated restaurants (Overbey, 2016). Moreover, as Griffith et al. (2016) discuss for the Florida Panhandle region, successful IFQ fisheries help sustain the often elaborate and interdependent network of support services found in the major coastal communities, serving commercial, for-hire, and recreational fisheries: goods and services for vessels and fishing trips, for seafood marketing, for cultural amenities like festivals and museums, and for government and education. However, smaller and more remote coastal and inland communities with fewer economic alternatives, more poverty, and grouper-tilefish fishers with very small allocations are highly vulnerable to further consolidation of the fishery (Overbey, 2016). Similar studies and findings were done in other communities in the Gulf (Griffith et al., 2016).

Bluefin Tuna (Secretary of Commerce/NOAA)

The 5-year review for Atlantic bluefin tuna’s IBQ listed no “social impacts” beyond the issue of cost recovery (NMFS, 2019). Community profiles are available in Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation (SAFE) reports for the highly migratory species, but the bluefin tuna IBQ was not included in the Colburn et al. (2017) study of community participation in catch share programs, meaning that the SICC data have not been fine tuned to refer specifically to the highly migratory species pelagic longline fleet.

The available community profiles, from the SAFE reports for highly migratory species, show that the homeports with highest measures of engagement in and/or dependence on the pelagic longline fisheries in recent years are Montauk, New York; Barnegat Light, New Jersey; Cape May, New Jersey; and Grand Isle, Louisiana. Others with significant engagement are Beaufort, North Carolina, and Panama City, Florida, which like most coastal ports have diverse economies, reducing reliance on the fisheries. Of that group, only Grand Isle and Panama City had high measures of social vulnerability, meaning they would encounter more obstacles when recovering from economic hardships caused by changes in the commercial and recreational fisheries. Others with signs of vulnerability, but with low measures of engagement with bluefin tuna, were Fort Pierce, Florida; New Bedford, Massachusetts; Pompano Beach, Florida; Port Salerno, Florida; Freeport, Texas; Beaufort, North Carolina; Morehead City, North Carolina; and Apalachicola, Florida.

An extensive social impact analysis of the effects of regulations on fishing communities involved in bluefin tuna fishing and other highly migratory species took place prior to IBQs (Wilson and McCay, 1998). Its scope and depth create a valuable blueprint for future community studies, among which is found otherwise unusual discussions of recreational as well as commercial fisheries for those species. Moreover, it shows that there has been significant change in the highly migratory species fisheries since 1998 but some patterns remain, including continued decline, which is relevant to the more recent, post-IBQ period.

The 1998 study showed that the pelagic longline fishery and its suppliers had become tightly linked to global markets and that many longline fishers had emigrated to other nations to continue the fishery. In most ports, the longline fishery was relatively small and isolated, although there

may be historic and kinship ties with other fisheries, including recreational fisheries. In the Gulf of Mexico, yellowfin tuna and shark have been more important to pelagic longliners; in Louisiana, the longline fleet was more of a commuter fishery, mainly Vietnamese, with tight kinship networks. In Florida, longliners had become more isolated from the rest of the fishing communities, which experienced rapid development of tourism and recreational fishing. In the South Atlantic, longliners tended to be smaller, but there is a proud heritage in Pompano Beach. Major longliner supply companies there served global markets, but the fishing communities had become overwhelmingly recreational.

In the Mid-Atlantic region, Wanchese and Hatteras, North Carolina, and Barnegat Light, New Jersey, were the major pelagic longlining ports. The larger boats targeted yellowfin and bigeye tuna and swordfish, but many of these vessels had left for fishing in other waters, and the larger fish houses in these places had also become more global. Finding and keeping crew members was a major problem for the larger vessels that stay out longer and require more crew members. These places were and are fishing-dependent tourist centers, with charter boat fishing and tourist-related construction offering some alternatives to longlining and other forms of commercial fishing. All of these places identified as both commercial and recreational fishing communities, with families often participating in both commercial and recreational sectors, and individuals crossing back and forth.

In New England, New Bedford was highlighted as the center of the distant water longline fleet and like Gloucester, Massachusetts, was home for the small purse seine bluefin tuna fleet (which continues to get a large portion of the quota even though it has been inactive since 2015). The distant water longline fleet, mainly targeting swordfish, was very migratory, and in the 1990s many had moved to Hawaii. The captains and crews were highly skilled and able to find longliner work elsewhere; crew members were sometimes recruited from the West Indies. The owners, captains, and crew members lived highly dispersed along the coast and were fairly isolated from the communities in which they live, even in highly integrated communities like New Bedford. The small purse seine fleet fished for bluefin tuna only a few weeks per year in the 1990s, those involved doing other fishing or work the rest of the year but maintaining strong kinship ties to the local fishing communities.

Finally, the 1998 report discussed recreational bluefin tuna communities: Hatteras, North Carolina; Brielle, New Jersey; and Gloucester, Massachusetts. The “general category” bluefin tuna permit holders were treated as recreational fishers, even though using that permit allows one to sell the fish, a feature of this fishery that remains today. By and large, the “general category” fished from small private boats and were not dependent on bluefin tuna for a living. “For the majority of boats, the social effect of the sale of a bluefin tuna is much closer to that of winning a prize in a fishing tournament than making a living from selling a fish” (Wilson and McCay, 1998). The recreational fishing community was itself highly diverse, with different groups seeking different experiences. Those targeting bluefin tuna tended to be wealthier people, mostly men, seeking adventure and trophies. Recreational fishing drives a large economy of marine trades (tackle, boats, engines, etc.), fishing supplies (bait and ice), and general tourist services such as restaurants and hotels. Bluefin tuna were key attractions for these communities, which compete with other tourist destinations. The wealthier people attracted by the bluefin tuna also provided some buffering for communities against decline in the overall economy. In these communities there was considerable community support for having both recreational and commercial fisheries. At the time of the research, the mid to late 1990s, people interviewed were concerned about greater tension between commercial and recreational sectors, but at that time communities appeared able to work together to respond to changes (Wilson and McCay, 1998).

The Wilson and McCay (1998) report provides further information on the recreational and commercial dimensions of the major communities in an extensive section on community profiles. Unfortunately, the information is not fully commensurate with the community profiles used in the

SAFE reports and the Colburn et al. (2017) report, constraining the committee’s ability to assess a before-and-after picture of the IBQ program, and other changes in the fisheries, in relation to the communities.

Wreckfish (South Atlantic) as of 2019 LAPP Review

The wreckfish fishery is highly specialized and very small, involving a handful of vessels homeported in a wide range of places, with shareholders and fishers and dealers involved in an even wider range. The six shareholders and the fishers, dealers, and fish houses that work with them are scattered between the Carolinas and the east coast of Florida. The wreckfish fishery is embedded in others, as participants move in and out of targeting wreckfish and may be catching other fish on their trips. There is, in effect, no recreational fishery for wreckfish despite a small allocation.

Social indicators show that most of the homeport communities appear to have significant dependence on the fishery; they show few social vulnerabilities, except high poverty levels in Daytona Beach and Marathon, Florida (Colburn et al., 2017). The small size of the fishery and the small number of dealers and harvesters in any given year restrict further analysis because of the issue of confidentiality, which constrains the types of information that can be presented to the public. As the LAPP review says,

Golden Tilefish (Mid-Atlantic)

The golden tilefish commercial fishery is embedded in and important to specific place-based fishing communities, namely Montauk, New York (and neighboring Hampton Bays), and Barnegat Light, New Jersey, although open access vessels that catch tilefish as incidental catches are found in a far larger number of places in the Mid-Atlantic and New England areas. The fishery is one that could be studied in terms of “communities at sea” (St. Martin et al., 2007). The fishing grounds, on the edge of the continental shelf, are mainly in two relatively small NOAA statistical areas, and almost all tilefish are caught from baited longlines. Thus, the small number of boats that target tilefish share technology, port, and fishing grounds, the basis for the social ties that make up this community.

Moreover, the communities have been sites for important collaboration among fishers and dealers, in terms of developing markets for golden tilefish, initially in Barnegat Light, which led to the creation of a successful dock, retail market, and restaurant complex, Viking Village. When limited access management began, fishers in Montauk, who by that time had replaced those of Barnegat Light as the major tilefish harvesters, cooperated in a program of self-regulation to keep within the quota and optimize marketing (Kitts et al., 2007; Pinto da Silva and Kitts, 2006), and their leadership was instrumental in creating the IFQ program (Colburn et al., 2017).

The structure of the fishery is one of a very few major IFQ harvesters (6 or 7) and shareholders (11-13), almost all located in one community, Montauk, New York, and a large number of harvesters not in the IFQ program who catch tilefish as an incidental catch to fisheries targeting other species (averaging 2,068 vessels from 2010 to 2015) (MAFMC, 2017). This general structure had emerged prior to IFQs, when a tiered limited access system was imposed and sharply reduced participation. It was reinforced in the initial allocation of the quota share and has remained more or less the same since.

There was a large decline in participation from the premanagement phase through the tiered limited access period, but to a lesser degree with IFQs. Moreover, Barnegat Light’s fishers and dealers were effectively shut out of the fishery while Montauk thrived. However, both ports continued to function as important commercial (and recreational) fishing centers, engaged in a variety of other fisheries. Although involved in tilefish fishing in the 1970s to 1990s, the Barnegat Light fishers had mainly switched to other species by the eligibility period in the 2000s, despite the fact that some had started the fishery in 1971 and done much to develop the markets (Moore, 2020). The LAPP review for golden tilefish noted that because fleet consolidation involved an “orderly and slow reduction in the number of vessels participating in the fishery ... it is likely that the capacity reduction has not had significant adverse social impacts on fishing communities” (MAFMC, 2017).

Recreational fisheries, private angler and for hire, are based in Montauk and Barnegat Light as well as other coastal ports in the region. The Snapshots of Human Communities and Fisheries in the Northeast database (NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center, 2019) shows a far higher degree of engagement with and reliance on recreational fisheries than commercial fisheries.

In both places, the longliners targeting tilefish are parts of a diversified fishing community—commercial, for hire, and recreational—within a larger coastal community marked by residential and tourist development. Colburn et al. (2017) showed that Montauk, the only community meeting criteria of being “highly engaged” in this IFQ fishery and hence the only one studied in that report, accounted for 70-75% of the poundage caught between 2007 and 2009 baseline through 2013. However, the IFQ for golden tilefish accounted for only 7-10% of the total pounds and 15-20% of the total value landed in Montauk during that period. Montauk ranked low on indices for social vulnerability (personal disruption, population composition, poverty, and housing characteristics) (Colburn et al., 2017); the “Snapshots” data show a large highly educated, professional population. It is coded as highly vulnerable to indices of gentrification on housing disruption and urban sprawl, and moderately vulnerable for the retiree migration index (Colburn et al., 2017).

A brief summary is possible for Barnegat Light as well, based on the “Snapshots” database, which is another source of information about fishing communities, and is referenced here to point to the variety of sources of descriptive information, although, as with other current sources, it has limitations in assessing community-level impacts of changes in the fisheries. In terms of value, scallops have become the dominant species landed, but like Montauk it hosts a number of smaller vessels fishing for a wide range of species, including fluke, scup, black seabass, and monkfish. Barnegat Light is perhaps more fishery centered than most, in that fishing (coded in the census as agriculture/fishing) represents almost 15% of the occupations, balanced against professional, arts/ entertainment, and construction. It has an exceptionally high level of both commercial and recreational fishing reliance. It is a much older population (average 60.3).

FISHERY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND NOAA SOCIAL INDICATORS

One dataset that speaks to social outcomes in fisheries is the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs). The FPIs quantitatively code a large number of factors in a global sample of fisheries with heterogeneous forms of management (Anderson et al., 2015). Each fishery is coded by an expert with detailed rubrics for the individual factors. The indicators can then be aggregated into broad categories measuring performance in terms of economic, ecological, and social outcomes. An advantage of the FPIs is that these broad categories are linked transparently to the detailed metrics. For example, some of the social metrics are harvester participation in industry organizations, harvester participation in management, measures of community and social cohesion, and four separate gender-based metrics to capture women’s influence on business management, influence on fishery management, participation in the harvest sector, and participation in the post-harvest sector. This transparency means that if a particular fishery is scoring high or low on the social scale, it is pos-

sible to see which underlying metrics are driving that aggregate. Another advantage of the FPIs is that the same approach can be applied consistently to expand the database and to characterize operations in the aquaculture sector.

Because management types are coded as well, one can examine statistical associations between, for instance, whether a fishery is managed with a LAPP and social, ecological, or economic outcomes. Indeed, in one analysis of performance indicators, social, ecological, and economic outcomes are all positively associated in LAPP fisheries (Asche et al., 2018). Positive outcomes along social, economic, and ecological dimensions are not associated in fisheries that do not limit access. Testing for associations of underlying metrics of the FPIs with management features is still nascent and has not been fully explored in published research.

There are several limitations of the FPIs. First, the data are currently cross sectional. This feature limits the ability to apply quasi-experimental designs for causal inference about specific management styles. Second, expanding the database to become longitudinal in the long run will have to confront the reality that future coders of the same fishery will be different individuals and may not make the same judgments. Third, there are nuances in human experience and perceptions of change that are not well captured by quantitative metrics. In that sense, FPIs are not a substitute for survey and ethnographic data but should be viewed as complementary.

Another dataset for considering social impacts of management and LAPPs in particular is the NOAA SICC data, which are used for some of the descriptions of the communities above. Although SICC has some similarity to the FPIs in that they attempt to code social vulnerability and other features quantitatively, the datasets are very different in most respects. First, the data are U.S. only, not global. Second, the unit of observation is a coastal community, not a fishery. This is a strength in that there are many communities in the database (large sample size, or “n”), far more than the number of fisheries coded in the FPIs (and the number was further enhanced by the decision to include all coastal communities in each coastal county, whether or not fishing was involved). This feature is also a weakness for understanding impacts of fishery management because such impacts may be diffuse in the broader community and thus difficult to resolve quantitatively from the SICC. Third, the data are longitudinal, so communities are followed over time. The SICC data span 2009 through 2018.

This feature is a pronounced strength and introduces the possibility of using the SICC in quasi-experimental designs to evaluate policy impacts or impacts of major disruptions like natural disasters. Fourth, the indicators are not as transparent as the FPIs. The exact processing of raw data is not specified, and some indicators may rely on confidential data. Other problems using similar social vulnerability indicators are discussed by Spielman et al. (2020).

Analysis of Labor in Florida Communities with and Without Exposure to LAPPs

Despite the limitations of the SICC, the committee conducted data analysis to illustrate how these data might be used to assess the causal impacts of LAPPs on social outcomes in affected communities. The committee specifically analyzed the labor force metric (labor) for which “a high rank means likely fewer employment opportunities and a more vulnerable population.” The null hypothesis is that implementation of LAPPs has no effect on the labor metric. As such, the committee seeks to compare labor in communities that were treated with LAPPs before and after the treatment date with communities that were not treated with LAPPs before and after the treatment date. Ideally, the control units would be otherwise similar to the treated units.

To this end, the committee used just Florida communities to exploit a natural experiment. The premise is that Gulf communities were treated with LAPPs in 2010 (the grouper-tilefish LAPP), but communities on Florida’s Atlantic coast were not. Here −81.6° was used as the longitude cutoff to approximate “Gulf” and divide the communities in Florida. This is imperfect because of the

shape of Florida, but it is a reasonable starting point for illustrative preliminary analysis. Then all communities that did not have complete data with 10 observations were filtered out (to eliminate ones that had no baseline observation in 2009 prior to the LAPPs or other missing observations). Then 2011-2018 averages were computed to represent after treatment (or the after period for the control). The data in 2010 were dropped to avoid timing issues associated with SICC measurement and the implementation of the LAPP. The average was then differenced with the 2009 baseline observation (before the LAPP). In economics and other quantitative social sciences, this approach is referred to as a difference-in-differences design. Ecologists would refer to it as a before-after-control-impact design.

It was found that LAPPs had no effect on labor (no statistically significant findings). The analysis was conducted both using all of the communities with full observations (n = 507) and restricting the sample to communities with high fishery dependence (n = 29). The point estimates for the difference-in-differences coefficients are both positive, despite findings of no statistical significance. It is possible that the SICC are not measured with sufficient precision to resolve effects statistically or the quasi-experiment is not sufficiently refined. Still, if there were a substantial effect, one would expect that it would come out in one of these analyses. Figures 7.2 and 7.3 illustrate the difference-in-differences score.

In terms of confounders, it is difficult to argue that the Atlantic coast experienced as many negative external shocks as the Gulf. Consider the experience of hurricanes and other disasters. There were five such shocks in the “after” period: Deepwater Horizon (2010), Hurricane Hermine (2016, category 1), Hurricane Matthew (2016, category 2), Hurricane Irma (2017, category 4), and Hurricane Michael (2018, category 5). Of these five, four were in the Gulf and only Matthew affected the Atlantic coast. Had negative effects of LAPPs on employment been found, the negative effects plausibly might have reflected these shocks. However, a finding of no effect suggests

either a true null effect or a positive effect of the LAPPs that was obscured by the negative shocks. A small effect size is not surprising in light of the fact that fishing is just one of many industries contributing to the local coastal economies in Florida.

OVERALL FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

The coastal communities within which the fisheries of study have been located are ones where fishing is a small part of the local economy and society compared with tourism, retirement and second homes, and other sectors. In addition, the LAPP fisheries are typically part of diverse mixes of fisheries in these places. The data are not available to assess the extent to which LAPPs have contributed to increased specialization as against broad patterns of diverse, flexible, opportunistic fishing in the Gulf, South Atlantic, and Mid-Atlantic, but there is a general understanding among fishery participants and observers that this has happened. Interviews and surveys show widespread concern about the future of the fisheries and hence fishing communities, of which the LAPPs are only part of the picture. Ethnographic studies and surveys in the Gulf of Mexico showed that people who had not benefited greatly from the LAPPs were critical of the programs, but even those who benefited and appreciated some of the features of the programs were concerned about the future of the fisheries and fishing communities (Griffith et al., 2016; Overbey, 2016).

Congress intended that LAPPs take into consideration fishery-dependent communities and vulnerable groups within them, including the smaller-scale fishers who might not compete successfully with others in the markets for quota share. NOAA’s effort to develop systematic data on coastal communities that engage in commercial and recreational fishing is an important contribution to assessing community needs and the success of fisheries management programs in meeting

them. The committee sees potential for the further refinement and use of the social indicators for causal analysis, as done above in a preliminary study of employment indicators in communities that did and did not have LAPP fisheries in Florida, with the recognition that rigorous ethnographic research remains critically important for community assessment. Furthermore, smaller-scale fishers or those in underserved communities could benefit most from providing training in support of transfer markets such as finding trading partners, how to value assets (e.g., future fishing conditions, estimate costs and prices, assess risk preferences, and their time value of money; Ropicki, 2013), and expansion of loan programs that can help sustain fishing in the local community.