On the Swedish west coast Nephrops are fished using creels and trawls. Creel fishing exhibits lower seafloor pressure than trawl fishing, uses less fuel, and bycatch of other species per landed kilogram is lower. An expansion of the area for the creel fishery is thus interesting from an environmental perspective but the possibilities for policy change will also depend on the economic viability of the fishery, i.e. how incomes and costs of the fishery are affected.

We investigate the economic effects on the Nephrops fishery of an expansion of the creel area and analyse how fleet structure and the net present value of profits is affected using a bio-economic fishery model (FishRent). In addition, we investigate how fuel use changes when the creel area is expanded. Our findings suggest that an area expansion would increase the number of creel fishers and decrease the number of trawl fishers. The net present value of the fishery would increase in total but a number of small trawlers leave the fishery and thus the net present value decrease for this fleet segment. Fuel use could increase or decrease depending on other policies in place for the fishery.

For a brief version in Swedish, see AgriFood Policy Brief 2018:7.