The effect of regulation changes and influential factors on Atlantic cod discards in the Baltic Sea demersal trawl fishery

Abstract

There is a common misconception among government officials that environmental regulations are bad for economic growth. Citing economic reasons, the Canadian federal government passed legislation in 2012 restricting the length of environmental reviews of new developments, even though review times were not empirically known. Using annual reports to Parliament from 2001 to 2010, we estimated using time-series analyses that review times under the Fisheries Act conformed to the new government mandated review times prior to major legislative changes to federal environmental oversight. The majority of submissions were processed within 1 year for mitigated impacts and within 2 years for authorized impacts. While it is possible that a minority of projects take longer, there is no evidence of large backlogs in the review process, and Canadian review times appear quicker than those in the United States. We highlight the need for empirical estimates of the costs of environmental regulations before governments enact substantial legislative changes that reduce environmental oversight and offer alternate recommendations for expediting environmental review times. Résumé :Les représentants gouvernementaux considèrent souvent, à tort, que la réglementation relative à la protection environnementale nuit à la croissance économique. Évoquant des raisons économiques, le gouvernement fédéral du Canada adoptait, en 2012, une loi qui restreint la durée des examens environnementaux de nouveaux projets et ce, en l'absence de données empiriques sur la durée de ces examens. À la lumière de rapports annuels du Parlement de 2001 à 2010, nous avons estimé, à l'aide d'analyses de séries chronologiques, que les durées des évaluations environnementales menées en vertu de la Loi sur les pêches étaient conformes aux nouvelles durées prescrites par le gouvernement avant l'entrée en vigueur d'importants changements législatifs relatifs à la surveillance environnementale par le gouvernement fédéral. La majorité des demandes était traitée dans l'année en ce qui concerne les impacts devant être atténués, et en deçà de deux ans pour les impacts autorisés. S'il se peut qu'une minorité de projets prenne plus de temps, rien n'indique des retards importants dans le processus d'évaluation, et il semblerait que la durée des évaluations soit moins longue au Canada qu'aux États-Unis. Nous soulignons la nécessité d'estimations empiriques des coûts de la réglementation environnementale préalablement à la promulgation par les gouvernements de modifications législatives importantes qui limitent la surveillance environnementale et nous proposons d'autres moyens permettant de réduire la durée des évaluations environnementales. [Traduit par la Rédaction]

Fishing profiles of Danish seiners and bottom trawlers in relation to current EU management regulations

“…() were inconclusive about the importance of mesh size on the discard rates of plaice and suggested that the heterogeneity in the sampling across mesh sizes and other factors was likely the cause of this phenomenon. The high importance of vessel and/or trip as random effects in determining catches was also found in several other studies (Feekings et al., ; Poos & Rijnsdorp, ; Tschernij & Holst, ). There may, however, be other influential factors (e.g.…”

Historic changes in length distributions of three Baltic cod (Gadus morhua) stocks: Evidence of growth retardation

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Selective fishing induces density-dependent growth

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