School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe Victorian scallop fisheries : an economic analysis( 1978)This thesis studies the Victorian scallop industry in an economic framework. It is the first of its kind to be performed on a Victorian fishery. A static model of a scallop fishery is used to investigate whether a reduction in the size of the scallop fleet would be desirable. The implications are examined of various management schemes which would aim to maximise the net economic benefits to be earnt from scallop fishing. Fishing industries and especially those based on highly valued species such as the scallop, have a tendency to be problem industries. The Victorian scallop industry is no exception. The common. property nature of the marine fishery is the root cause of this problem. Left to their own devices fishermen will keep entering a fishery as long as there is incentive to do so. The central hypothesis of this thesis is that the amounts of capital and labour allocated to the Victorian scallop fishing industry are excessive. The common property-theory of a fishery is dealt-with in chapter 2. There a static model of the . fishery is developed through two stages. The first enables the identification of the optimal rate of exploitation given that the objective of management is to maximise resource rent. The second stage of this model enables-the identification of several different optima each according to a form of control or ownership. Consideration is also given to some models which incorporate time as a variable. Chapter 3 deals with fisheries management. It outlines those measures which may be used to control-fishing effort as well as the secondary measures which may also be necessary to control a fishery. Chapter 4 discusses the two Victorian scallop fisheries at Port Phillip Bay and Lakes Entrance. It gives background. information on scallop fishing and a history of past and present management measures. It includes an outline of the management objectives the Fisheries and Wildlife Division of the Ministry for Conservation has in mind when formulating policy. A brief description of the biology of the scallop is given in chapter 5. This is followed by the development of a yield model which. is then applied to the two scallop fisheries. The results of a cost and income survey of scallop fishermen, are reported in chapter 6 and these results are used to calculate linear cost of effort functions for the two fisheries. Chapter 7 draws together the yield and cost of effort functions to produce cost of output functions. These - functions enable the estimation of optimal amounts of effort and catch given that the objective of management was to maximise resource rent. The implications of these results are discussed in chapter 8.