Evaluation and design of fisheries management plans: detecting the impact of management measures on fisheries dynamics using distancecorrelation.

摘要

The development and implementation of fisheries management plans can be expensive and time consuming. It is therefore essential to be able to determine if a plan has been effective in achieving its objectives. When the objectives of a management plan have been achieved (for example F, has been reduced to below some threshold level) it is important to determine if it was as a direct result of elements of the plan (for example, TAC restricting fishing mortality) or because of an external factor that was not includedor considered by the plan (for example, fuel price rises causing a reduction in fishing effort). In the former case, we want to be able to understand which aspects of a management plan were effective so they can be considered in the design for future plans. In the latter case, there is the possibility of falsely attributing success to aspects of a plan that had no impact, thereby needlessly including them in the design of future plans. These issues can become more complicated in mixed fisheries where multiple gear types catch multiple stocks because interactions between the different biological and economic elements are not straightforward.