La técnica multicriterio de programación por metas en la gestión de la pesquería de chirla (Chamelea gallina) de la región suratlántica española

Resumen

In the last decades there has been a centralization process in fisheries management. Therefore, the regulations that frequently considered the characteristics of the area and fleets involved have been replaced by sophisticated state management regimes. Despite the fact that regimes are based on more reliable scientific aspects, they are proving to be ineffective to stop the deterioration of fish stocks. Resource assessment and scientific advice, establishing technical measures, setting total allowable catches (TACs) and national quotas, etc., have produced that fishermen are less involved in the decision-making process. This dichotomy between resource users and the level, in which the fisheries management system is determined, is one of the main causes of the fishermen tendency to disregard measures imposed, and, as a result, it makes any attempt to impose a rational fishing system fail. In fact, conventional management systems not only maintain the competitive race among fishermen but also lead them to disregard the rules and to conceal catches. Fishermen are not the resource owners and they have not its exclusive use. Actually, if fishing resource is considered as a publicly owned good, it will not slow the competitive race or lead fishermen to consider the negative future consequences of current decisions (1). The search for solutions to fisheries management, which is based on fishermen's behavior moderation, should not be based on legislative measures (centralized systems) or the liberalisation of the sale of fishing rights (ITQ systems). On the other hand, they should consider that fishermen should be involved in the future of their business and the decision-making process. In other words, the "investment" in resource which is agreed at present, will benefit them in the future. From this point of view, co-management, which is a situation in which resource users, to a greater or lesser extent, establish their own rules, is a reasonable alternative to the neoliberal proposal to set up a market for fishing rights. If fishermen are involved in the decision-making process, it will make them to accept rules more easily, it will improve the availability and quality of the information used to make decisions and, above all, it will promote the collaboration of fishermen to monitor quotas or effort. In this research we suggest a methodology for the design of a co-management system which is based on multicriteria decision-making techniques to ensure sustainable exploitation of the Striped Venus (Chamelea Gallina) on the coast of Huelva and Cadiz (ICES region IXa)). Multicriteria analysis makes decision making easier and approaches it to reality as much as possible. To do it, a goal programming model is used. This model includes restrictions associated with biological, socio-economic and political objectives. They are often contradictory and achieving them simultaneously is impossible. Similarly, interests of the various stakeholders involved in the fishery management have been evaluated through surveys designed and analyzed using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Then, they have been included in the process to determine the optimal solutions. The results of the goal programming model have been verified through sensitivity analysis on the model. All results show the usefulness of these methods in the design of fisheries management policies and the various stakeholders' hierarchies of objectives involved in the decision-making process. (1) According to Gordon (1954, p. 132), "the only fisherman who becomes rich is one who makes a lucky catch or one who participates in a fishery that is put under a form of social control that turns the open resource into property rights".