- Kick off Meeting
23-24 Feb 2012 Gothenburg, Sweden - SWAM premises
- Unofficial meeting
27 Apr 2012 Ispra, Italy - JRC premises
- Progress meeting
28 Sep 2012 Gothenburg, Sweden - SWAM premises
- Final meeting
7 Jun 2013 Gothenburg, Sweden - SWAM premises
- Presentation
18 Feb 2014 Ispra, Italy - JRC premises ( Fishreg 5a meeting Room) - 13:00-14:00 hrs
Abstract: In many EU fisheries, and globally, fishers have an incentive to overuse marine resources. To counteract this problem, appropriate fisheries management systems had to be put in place, including control and enforcement strategies. Enforcement of EU fisheries management systems is costly relative to the gross value of landings with an estimated 150 to 600 million Euros per annum (2-8% of the value of landings). It is likely that this budget could be more effectively used than is currently the case. Based on lessons learnt from the EU funded (FP6) research project COBECOS (COsts and BEnefits of COntrol strategies), the JRC decided to set up a pilot implementation in collaboration with the Swedish enforcement authorities. Fisheries control & enforcement theory developed within COBECOS was applied to two Swedish fisheries. The COBECOS software package developed in R (a free software environment for statistical computing libraries) uses as input fisheries data of bio-economic nature (stock size, catch, catch limits-TACs, market prices, operational costs) as well as control and enforcement data (control effort, enforcement cost, number of infringements, penalty levels). Through a user-friendly Graphical User Interface it outputs optimal levels of control at the lower costs, so that to obtain higher benefits from the fishery for the society. As shown in practice, it can be implemented in the following ways: (i) as a learning/training tool for fisheries enforcement and control agencies that need better understanding of the principles of efficient enforcement; (ii) as a design tool for designing better enforcement systems; (iii) as a budgeting tool to argue for increased enforcement budgets on the basis of cost efficiency.