Modelling FIshers' preferences for alternative management options under the Common Fisheries Policy

Failure to understand the potential responses of fishers to new management measures creates a significant risk of revisiting the familiar scenario of perverse and unintended consequences. This paper reports on a Choice Experiment survey to evaluate fishermen’s preferences for new management measures proposed under the recent EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform process. The survey was conducted with fishermen involved in mixed pelagic and demersal fisheries in Ireland, pelagic fisheries in Denmark and demersal fisheries in Greece. Fisheries management policies were characterised by five attributes designed both to cover the principal CFP reform proposals and to integrate ecological, social, economic and institutional factors. The paper uses a Random Utility Modelling framework to reveal the preferences of the fishermen for the alternative policy attributes and to analyse how respondents make trade-offs. Results show that while there are broad preferences both for healthy stocks and for maintaining the importance of fishing to the local community strong inter-fishery preference differences exist, most notably in relation to a discard ban, to the use of individual transferable fishing rights and to a certain extent to the prioritising of healthy fish stocks.