Designing Spatially Explicit Property Rights for Moving Fish

Territorial use rights in fisheries (TURFs) are coastal territories assigned to fishermen for the exclusive extraction of marine resources. Recent evidence shows that the incentives arrangement that results from these systems can generate the conditions to develop sustainable fisheries. Thus, TURFs are gaining renewed attention as a potential tool for sustainable fisheries management in small-scale fisheries. This growing popularity comes despite the fact that there are still unresolved questions about the most effective TURF designs. One of the key questions is the role of TURF size in their efficacy both from ecological and social standpoints. The existing theory surrounding Territorial Use Rights on Fisheries (TURFs) design indicates TURFs should be designed to match dispersal capacity of the targeted species. According to this principle, if the size of the TURF is small relative to the scale of fish dispersal, most benefits of actions go to neighboring fishing areas, and the motivation for reforms by TURF owners is reduced or eliminated. In my first chapter I explored this hypothesis by analyzing the effect of TURF size on TURF performance. I studied the expected effects of existing TURF sizes on yields for TURF systems in Chile, Mexico and Japan. The results show that existing TURF systems are often large too small to fully mitigate the theoretical effects of larval and adult fish spillover. However, the modeled losses in yields due to spillovers do not necessarily align with empirical evidence of successful management. The goal of the second and third chapter is to explain this discrepancy by analyzing how systems with strong levels of adult and larval spillover respectively can have a strong performance.;In theory, spillover of adult fish to a TURF's surroundings generate incentives to race, since fish that move between fishing areas have the properties of a common pool resource. However, many TURFs have proven successful even when targeting species that move over long distances. A common attribute of these systems is the presence of inter- TURF cooperation arrangements. In my second chapter I simulate consequences that different levels of inter-TURF cooperation can have on reducing the effects of fish movement on yields. Our results show that 1) cooperation improves the overall systems yields in all scenarios 2) high levels of cooperation are necessary to observe substantial increases in yields 3) cooperation can be beneficial to both patches even with an unequal distribution of benefits (especially for fish with high movement capacity).;My third chapter aims to explain why systems with high levels of larval spillover can have successful outcomes. I propose that including the effect of age structure and market conditions (fishermen discount rates and the presence of price premiums for size) and the targeted species' life history into TURF models could greatly increase our understanding of why existent TURF systems seem unaffected by high levels of larval spillover. In this paper I explore this hypothesis by building age-structured models to assess how harvest strategies are likely to change when including these drivers into current models. Our results show that maximum economic gains can be achieved in systems with high levels of larval spillover if 1) access rights over the adults are clearly defined where fishing activities are performed and 2) there's a price premium for larger fish.