Louisiana Sea Grant Receives $648,000 Grant

Louisiana Sea Grant has been awarded a $648,512 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Fisheries Service to conduct a socioeconomic assessment of the northern Gulf of Mexico’s fisheries. Rex Caffey, Louisiana Sea Grant coastal specialist and professor and director of the LSU Center for Natural Resource Economics & Policy (CNREP), will coordinate the project with CNREP co-investigators Walter Keithly and Richard Kazmierczak.

The research will include three studies developed in conjunction with staff economists of the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center. They include: 1) a survey and characterization of the recreational-for-hire charter fishing industry in the northern Gulf of Mexico; 2) an economic review of the recently-implemented individual fish quota management system for red snapper; and 3) development of a demand forecasting model for U.S. consumption of domestic seafood. Essentially, these studies will examine how increasing regulatory actions and downward market factors have affected recreational charter boat operators, commercial red snapper fishermen and domestic seafood processors, and what adjustments can be made at the public and private level to address those forces.

The three-year project also will establish two new Sea Grant-sponsored postdoctoral positions and two additional graduate assistantships for CNREP researchers in the LSU Department of Agricultural Economics.

“Each of these studies will provide baseline data that is needed for state and federal fisheries management purposes,” said Caffey. “Periodic snapshot studies, such as these, are useful in describing the short- and long-term implications of policy changes and market forces. Armed with objective, science-based information, state and federal manager can make policy adjustments to assure that the nation’s fisheries are managed in an economically and environmentally sound manner.”