Evaluation of the buy-back program for fishing vessels over ten meters in Turkey

Many implementations are put into practice on the national and international scale for the purpose of enabling the sustainable use of living marine resources. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MoFAL) published a notification in 2012 and the buy-back program for fishing vessels was initiated to keep the balance between the fish stocks and fishing capacity, prevent overfishing and enable sustainable fishing. First of all, the Ministry included the fishing vessels with the length of 12 meters and above within the scope, paid 62 million TL in total by the end of 2013 and excluded 364 fishing vessels from the fleet as a result of the program that accepted applications on a volunteer basis. Then, the scope of the support was expanded upon the requests and a second buy-back program was initiated in 2013. This study evaluates the buy-back program started by MoFAL targeting the owners of fishing vessels with the length of 10 meters or above, within the scope of "Notification for the Support to Those Withdraw Their Fishing Vessels from Fishing" numbered 2013/25 based on decision of the MoFAL numbered 2013/4463. Telephone interviews were applied to the owners of 207 fishing vessels, which were among 446 purchased fishing vessels in 2014. The sample size was determined by using the stratified sampling method in 2014. The results of the buy-back program were evaluated in the present study indicate that 446 fishing vessels were withdrawn from the fleet with the 2nd program by paying 51 million TL in total. Most of the vessel (44%) purchases were made in the Marmara and the least vessel purchases were made in the Mediterranean Regions (19%). Mostly the buy-back of the fishing vessels with the length of 10-20 meters (440 vessels) was carried out, and the fishing vessels with the length of 21-30 meters (6 vessels) were bought back at the least. Fishermen who had fishing vessels with the length of 31 meters and above didn't apply to the program. Only 9% of the transferred vessels were trawls or purse seines. 28% of the people who transfer their fishing vessels had a second vessel, and with the buy-back program, they handed over their second vessels which worked inactively or without profits. 62% of the fishermen who made use of the program stated that they would continue working in the fishing sector. 27% of the vessel owners who participated in the survey are in tendency of buying a new vessel with the money they received from the buy-back program. 66 of the vessel owners who planned to buy a new vessel stated that they would buy vessels shorter than 10 meters and 6 of them expressed that they would buy longer vessels for trawl and seine fishing. Consequently, the buy-back program is one of the most significant implementation conducted by the MoFAL for fisheries management in recent years. However, administrators must take those determinations into account: owners of large vessels don't show interest in the program, one of every 4 fishermen, who hand out their vessels, already had a second vessel and gave up their inactive vessels for the program, almost the same number of fishermen were in tendency of buying a second vessel with the money they took from the program. Furthermore, following the global experiences on buy-back programs were extremely fundamental approach which needs to be considered by the management authority in order to get maximum benefits. This approach should be followed for the upcoming programs at least.