Viability of Transboundary Fisheries and International Quota Allocation: The Case of the Bay of Biscay Anchovy.

This paper examines the viability of the management of a transboundary fishery. In a deterministic dynamic framework, we consider a fish stock with two age groups, juveniles and adults, exploited by two countries having a different impact on the age groups. A regulatory agency defines an annual total allowable catch and its allocation between the two countries. We consider allocations satisfying a set of constraints representing viability conditions. The constraints include a minimal quota and minimal profit for each country. We compare intertemporal viable trajectories with the trajectory resulting from a cooperative game in which the two countries agree on the maximization of the fishery's total profit. While the cooperative solution consists in allocating the whole fishing effort to the most efficient country, the viable solution ensures a limitation of inequalities but reduces the overall economic outcome. The results are illustrated for the Bay of Biscay anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus L.), exploited by Spain and France, with two different types of gear, the purse seine for Spain and the pelagic trawl for France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]