Fisheries Management for California Dungeness Crab—Adapting to Change

Abstract

The Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) fishery, economically robust in California while other fisheries are depressed, is under pressure to develop new management tools. The California Legislature and responsible state agencies have responded to each new crisis in the fishery with revised management regulations that are unwieldy in adapting to changing conditions. Some fishermen are displaced, while others benefit. This then leads to the next set of challenges and reactions. The differing economic needs of processors and fishermen, large and smaller producers, and northern and southern fishermen, plus the agendas of influential nongovernmental organizations, produce advocacies for conflicting management options, hindering progress toward resolution. The Legislature wants guidance from the fishery, but the fishery does not speak with one voice. Alternative dispute resolution can help these diverse but interdependent interests move toward agreement on new management tools. The principles of adaptive management—gathering information, setting goals, predicting outcomes, monitoring and evaluating results toward obtaining such outcomes, then reviewing what worked and what failed—can lead to more economically and socially optimal outcomes.

Keywords:

• adaptive management
• alternative dispute resolution
• Dungeness crab fishery
• socially optimal outcomes

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Dr. Steven Hackett, Professor of Economics, Humboldt State University, for his encouragement and guidance on this manuscript, Robert Rasmussen of Olin Lifelong Learning Institute, the interviewees, as well as participants in the 2009 SSRIC Research Conference and the HSU North Coast Research Conference and Graduate Fair. An earlier version of the abstract appeared in the proceedings of these two conferences. An earlier version of this manuscript was submitted for credit in Economics 423, HSU, and was posted on a faculty member's website.