'GoFish' Decision Support System: An evaluation aid for managing environmental impacts in marine commercial fisheries

Abstract

New Zealand has the world's fourth largest Exclusive Economic Zone and a very large commercial fishery. Arguably, this fishery is one of the best managed in the world Nevertheless, many problems remain to be solved, especially environmental problems. Many of these problems can be categorised as externalities from commercial fishing. We (Hughey et al. 2000) have identified a wide range of policy instruments that can be applied to the internalisation of these externalities. In Cullen et al. (2000) we reported on criteria to measure the effectiveness of these instruments and established a framework for this evaluation. We have now developed a MS Access application which operationalises this framework and the main findings from the previous two reports. This report provides guidelines for implementing the application, including listing the range of potential uses for policy making. Assumptions and limitations involved in operationalising this pilot system are also identified.