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6 - The 200-mile zone: a sea change
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 117-134
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Summary
We have in previous chapters seen why fisheries have to be controlled: fish catches must be limited in order to avoid fish stock collapses, fishing mortality must be limited in order to maximize long-term yields, and the selectivity of fishing gear must be controlled in order to take advantage of fish growth or smooth fish catches over time. Any such control requires jurisdictional authority, first to set the rules and regulations and then to ensure that they will be followed, ultimately applying the powers of the sovereign state to punish violators as needed to deter infractions.
This mechanism works best within the borders of the sovereign state; the same state apparatus then sets the rules and punishes the violators. But fish stocks move about in the sea and are not easily kept within the limits of any single state. Many, and possibly the majority, of the stocks migrate between the waters of two or more states, and some into international waters where no state has jurisdiction except over boats flying their flag. There are even stocks that reside in international waters over their entire lifespan. Fisheries regulations, therefore, often require agreements between different states, none of which has power to impose regulations in the entire area where the stocks will be located over their lifespan. The enforcement of rules, including such as may have been agreed with other states, is much easier within a state's jurisdiction, however, than on the high seas outside the boundaries of any state.
In this chapter the development of the international law of the sea will be traced, from its freedom of the seas stage to the exclusive economic zone that is the premise of modern fisheries management. It is a fascinating story with unexpected twists and turns and, like all political sausage-making, not necessarily the perfect one for achieving optimal results. Be that as it may, the arrangement we currently have has necessitated wide international cooperation in fisheries management, some of which is formalized in regional management fisheries organizations given a somewhat special status by a fisheries agreement under the auspices of the UN.
Contents
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp v-vi
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Frontmatter
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp i-iv
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3 - Aquaculture
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 39-62
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Summary
As we have seen, the continued growth in production of aquatic organisms since the mid-1990s is due to aquaculture. Figure 3.1 shows the development of aquaculture production since 1970. The product mix of aquaculture is quite different, however, from capture fisheries. Fish, in the strict sense of the word, is barely one-half of the biomass produced by aquaculture (47 per cent in 2018). The largest category by weight is freshwater fish (40 per cent in 2018). Aquatic plants, mostly seaweed but also some microalgae, are the second largest category by weight: almost 30 per cent of the total production in 2018. Molluscs – that is, shellfish of various kinds (mussels, oysters, scallops, etc.) – rank as third, with 15 per cent in 2018. Then there are crustaceans, mainly shrimps, prawns, crawfish and crabs (8 per cent in 2018); diadromous fish, which include salmon (about 5 per cent in 2018); and marine fish (less than 3 per cent in 2018). In the capture fisheries (in a wide sense of the word), marine fish account for more than 70 per cent, freshwater fish for 11 per cent and aquatic plants for less than 1 per cent (numbers from 2018).
A rather different picture emerges if we look at value instead of quantity (Figure 3.2). Freshwater fish, crustaceans, molluscs and diadromous fish all have a higher value than aquatic plants, which have low value per unit weight; in 2018 they accounted for almost 30 per cent by weight but only 5 per cent by value, about the same as marine fish.
What are the species making up these broad categories? This is shown in Figure 3.3. Almost all cultivation of aquatic plants (not shown in the figure) takes place in four Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea. Most of this is brown and red seaweed. Some is used for direct human consumption while the rest is a source of carrageenan, used by the food industry as thickener and stabilizer. Freshwater fish consist of carps, tilapias and miscellaneous fish; the last category includes catfish, which some developing countries (Vietnam, for example) export to Europe and the United States. Catfish are also cultivated in the southern states of the United States.
List of figures and tables
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 193-195
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4 - Elementary fisheries economics
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 63-94
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Summary
The FAO database for captures of marine species contains no fewer than 1,700 species (FAO 2020: 10). The Peruvian anchovy is the top one in terms of quantity; the captures were more than 7 million tonnes in 2018, even if this was just an average year for the anchovy (see Figure 2.6). Second comes the Alaska pollock, with catches of almost 4 million tonnes in 2018 (see Figure 2.2). At the other end there are many species with catches of less than a tonne. Most fish species consist of “stocks”, populations that are separated in space and with little or no interaction between them. This is the basic unit of analysis in fisheries science. Atlantic cod, for example, consists of several stocks with little or no interaction: Northeast Arctic cod, Baltic cod, Icelandic cod, North Sea cod, Northern cod of Newfoundland, and more. Some fisheries scientists think there may be subpopulations of these that could be identified as stocks in their own right.
An economic analysis of fisheries must start with some basic facts about the productivity of nature. The most basic premises are that no fish produce no fish and that fish populations would not grow without limit if left untouched by humans. Furthermore, we know that some fish stocks have been exploited for thousands of years and yet not become extinct. It makes sense, therefore, to assume that a surplus growth will be generated if stocks are reduced below the upper limit set by nature. This surplus growth can sustain fishing for ever without endangering the continued existence of the fish population; the fishery would take only whatever the population does not need to maintain itself.
Several factors may lie behind the phenomenon of surplus growth. Fishing changes the age composition of fish stocks towards younger, faster-growing cohorts. Fewer fish could mean less competition for a limited food supply (this phenomenon is likely to be stronger in confined lakes than in the openended ecosystems of the ocean). Older fish often eat younger individuals of the same species, so the survival of young cohorts could improve as older cohorts are depleted through fishing.
1 - Introduction
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 1-10
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Summary
This book is directed primarily at business students who wish to learn about the economics of fisheries. It should be useful also for others who take an interest in the fishing industry, such as journalists, politicians and public administrators dealing with the fishing industry and fisheries management and all the issues that arise in that context. These issues can be complex. Fish often migrate over a wide area that extends over the jurisdiction of several sovereign states and into the high seas. The abundance of fish varies substantially over time, partly because of fishing, but even more so because of the variability of nature, for reasons often ill understood and unpredictable. This is a perfect set-up for frustrated expectations and conflicts between different industrial groups and sovereign states.
To understand these issues is a formidable task for scholars and scientists wielding the powerful tools of science: data gathering and formal analysis by mathematics and statistics. This book attempts to communicate the major lessons learned in a way that is accessible to people without much formal training in these disciplines. Formal analysis is mainly by graphs, but equations and manipulations of them cannot be entirely avoided if something meaningful is to be said, and occasionally some simple calculus is used. This should not be beyond the grasp of students of business administration or social sciences. The issues are illustrated with examples from fisheries in various parts of the world: fish stocks that have crashed; conflicts over jurisdiction at sea; and management innovations, such as individual fish quotas.
Sometimes one is left with the impression that the excitement over fisheries issues is way out of proportion to the economic importance of the industry. As an example, the newspapers of early 2020 carried articles to the effect that access to fishing in the waters of the United Kingdom might be an obstacle to a post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union, despite the fact that the economic contribution of the fish involved is almost negligible for both parties. The fisheries of the United Kingdom are indeed unlikely to be sufficiently important to make or break trading relations with the European Union, but it may nevertheless be noted that the contribution of fisheries to gross domestic product (GDP) underrates the importance of fisheries as an industry.
9 - Conclusion
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- Book:
- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 183-188
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Summary
Academic fora are full of discussions about fishing as a lifestyle, tradition and culture – something to be cherished and preserved. What is left unstated, or perhaps even forgotten, is that people fish to make a living, not by eating all the fish they catch but by selling most of it to others who want it but are not in a position to catch it themselves. Any such transaction needs two parties: a willing seller and a willing buyer. In today's rich and specialized societies, the potential buyers of fish can satisfy their needs by buying fish of many different kinds and from many different sources, and perhaps not buying any fish at all but, rather, some other foodstuff they like better. Sellers of fish had better make sure they have a competitive product in terms of quality and price. If they do not, they will be unable to sell their product, and, if their culture and lifestyle are a hindrance, that will have to change.
We are all familiar with how technological progress has changed the way of life, the things we use and even our food beyond recognition. This has happened in fisheries no less than in other industries or occupations. A little over 100 years ago the most prominent British biologist at the time, Thomas Huxley, could maintain that fishing had no effect on the viability of fish populations (see Smith 1994). He was very soon to be proved wrong. Yet Huxley's thesis was entirely to the point for earlier times, before the English invented trawl fisheries and got imitated by others. Our present ability to overfish stocks so that they nearly vanish is attributable to technological progress. We touched upon this in Chapter 5, when we told the story about the Norwegian spring-spawning herring. Rapid technological progress made it possible to almost wipe out the entire fish population over just a few years.
The solution is not to reverse technological progress; that has never been a winning strategy anywhere. Rather, fish stocks must be carefully monitored and fishing activity limited to what the stocks can support.
8 - Fisheries management
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- Book:
- The Economics of Fishing
- Published by:
- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 155-182
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Summary
Since the 200-mile exclusive economic zone became nearly universally established in the late 1970s, fisheries management by catch quotas has become increasingly widespread. The 200-mile zone was an important precondition, because a limit on total catches from a fish stock requires control over the boats fishing that stock. When most fisheries took place outside national limits, fish quotas would have required acceptance by all nations that engaged in the fishery. If those that participated in a fishery on the high seas had agreed on a total fish quota, this could have been challenged by newcomers, who could have entered the fishery by virtue of free fishing on the high seas. Successful management by those who at one point in time participated in a fishery would have made that type of challenge all the more likely. In this chapter we shall discuss fisheries management by catch quotas, its advantages and challenges and what the main alternatives are.
Even in cases when a fish stock is entirely within the economic zone of one country, setting a total quota can be a challenge; there are often distinctly different interest groups involved, much like different countries fishing the same stock. Satisfying everyone's demands would most probably mean that the total quota would be much too high, threatening depletion of the fish stocks. Cutting through such competing claims can be difficult enough for a single government, and doing so when different countries are involved more difficult still, as the legal enforcement apparatus of the nation state cannot be relied upon; no country has jurisdiction on another's territory. The issue is even less tractable for stocks that migrate into the high seas, for reasons discussed in the previous chapter; it is more challenging to cooperate when the number of participants is large, let alone indefinite, and enforcement is more difficult on the high seas, where no country has jurisdiction except flag states over their own boats. Nevertheless, control by fish quotas has become quite widespread, even for fish stocks that are shared between a number of countries, including those that straddle into the highs seas.
2 - World fisheries: some basic facts
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- Book:
- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 11-38
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Summary
In this chapter, we shall discuss some basic facts about the fishing industry. How has fish production developed in recent times? What is its role in the supply of food in the world? How has the composition of its products changed? What is the structure of the fishing industry like? Are world fisheries in a crisis in the sense that the food sources of the oceans are being depleted? How large is international trade in fish products and what is the main direction of its flow? Are tariffs a substantial hindrance to this trade?
By “fishing industry”, we primarily mean capture of fish in lakes or the oceans and the production of edible or useable material from these captures. But “fish is a fish is a fish”, as it was once put in the title of an academic paper (Gordon, Salvanes & Atkins 1994). Fish and other aquatic organisms are also farmed, fenced in by pens floating in the water or in ponds or tanks on land. The capture-based fishing industry meets aquaculture in the marketplace; both compete with similar products for the food budgets of consumers who often are indifferent to, or even ignorant about, where the goods they purchase come from: capture fisheries or aquaculture. When discussing fish markets and products and their trends it is difficult or impossible, and perhaps even pointless, to distinguish where the fish come from. Our discussion of fish production and trade will include farmed products, but otherwise this book is mainly concerned with the capture-based industry. Fish capture and fish farming are two very different activities; fish capture is essentially hunting with advanced equipment, but nevertheless subject to the vagaries of nature: variations in the weather and the availability or abundance of fish stocks. There is often high risk and uncertainty associated with this activity. Fish farming has much in common with agriculture: the fish stocks are kept under control; broods of fish are put out, fed and slaughtered according to plan. Even so, fish farming has its own risks as a result of the variability of nature: rough weather may destroy fish pens and put the fish on the run; poisonous algae may develop, and parasites have a field day in fish pens, as always when animals are crowded together and fed indiscriminately.
7 - International fisheries management: cooperation or competition?
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- Book:
- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 135-154
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Summary
To effectively manage fish stocks, cooperation between nations is obviously required when the stocks migrate between the economic zones of different countries. Such cooperation is likely to be most demanding when stocks also migrate into the high seas, both because the number of nations with a legitimate claim is not clearly defined and because jurisdiction on the high seas is in the hands of the state where the boat is registered. In this chapter, we shall look at the scope for international cooperation in the light of a branch of economics known as game theory. This deals with the interaction between players when the actions of one player have a perceptible influence on the outcome for another. This is highly relevant for fisheries issues, as the outcome for one country depends on what other countries fishing the same stock might do. The name “game theory” may appear frivolous, but the subject is deadly serious; the amount of fish that one country decides to take out of the sea may have great consequences for what other countries can take in the future. Therefore, the amount of fish that one particular country decides to take in any given period has to be decided on the basis of what others are likely to do and how they are likely to react to what that particular country decides to do.
The setting is often illustrated by the famous “prisoner's dilemma”. Two delinquents are suspected of armed robbery, but the police don't have any evidence. The two are put each in his own cell without the possibility of communication. They are made an offer. If one of them confesses and the other does not, he who confesses will be released, and the other one will be in jail for nine months. If both confess, they will be in jail for six months. If neither confesses, they will be in jail for a month because they were caught in a stolen car.
The outcome of the game can be illustrated by the following payoff matrix. The first entry in each cell is the outcome for player one, the second entry is the outcome for player two and the numbers are months in jail, negative since this is a negative payoff (after Gibbons 1992).
5 - Natural fluctuations of fish stocks
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 95-116
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Summary
In Chapter 2 we discussed the variability of fish catches and fish stocks at some length. Catches from some stocks have risen rapidly and then fallen just as rapidly to almost nothing (the Peruvian anchovy, the California sardine, the Japanese sardine). But after some time, decades in some cases, these stocks have bounced back and sometimes even surpassed their previous peaks. In this chapter we shall take a closer look at variations in fish stocks, in particular some other stocks that have collapsed. There are few if any cases of collapses without subsequent recovery, however, even though it may take a long time, even decades.
The variability of fish stocks can play out on several timescales. The shortest timescale is the year-to-year variability in recruitment – that is, variations in the size of fish cohorts. In temperate or cold waters spawning is seasonal; fish gather in their spawning grounds at a certain time of the year and may migrate hundreds of kilometres to get there (an example is the Northeast Arctic cod migrating from the Barents Sea to the area around the Lofoten islands). Each fish spawns millions of eggs, but most get eaten by other fish before they mature or die for other reasons. Small variations in an enormously high egg mortality could explain the large variations in cohort size. Suppose a fish spawns 70,000 eggs and that the normal mortality is 99.99 per cent. Of the 70,000 eggs only seven would normally survive. With a mortality of “only” 99.98 per cent, fourteen would survive, and the recruitment from that fish would be doubled.
The variability in recruitment can also play out on longer timescales. First, there are the apparently irregular high peaks of recruitment; typically fish cohorts are below average size in terms of numbers, but every once in a while there is an exceptionally large recruitment, which sustains the fishery for many years to come. We shall see an example of this below, drawn from the Northeast Arctic cod stock. The causes of these variations are not well known. The availability of critical food at a critical time has been mentioned.
The Economics of Fishing
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson
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- Published by:
- Agenda Publishing
- Published online:
- 21 December 2023
- Print publication:
- 21 January 2021
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The fishing industry's critical dependence on the natural environment makes it very different from other economic sectors. How it can optimally exploit a common resource while ensuring its sustainability raises many economic challenges. This book, suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on fisheries economics and management, provides an introduction to the economics of the fishing industry and the role of fisheries in the world economy.
The book's primary focus is on capture fisheries, although the discussion brings in wider aquaculture for comparative analysis. The key economic concepts that drive the industry, most notably sustainable yield, are explained in detail, before examining how the industry puts them into practice in a complex regulatory environment. The variability of fish stocks is considered and case studies of some spectacular stock crashes are discussed. The law of the sea is explained and how the movement of fish stocks across ocean boundaries has created regulatory bodies to manage international fisheries. At the heart of this management lies the quota system and the book outlines how it works and how, controversially, such quotas have become transferable.
The book offers readers a comprehensive and rigorous guide to the economic considerations motivating the industry and highlights the environmental challenges facing the sector as global consumption of fish continues to rise.
References
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- Book:
- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 189-192
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Index
- Rögnvaldur Hannesson, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen-Sandviken
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- Book:
- The Economics of Fishing
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- Agenda Publishing
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- 21 December 2023
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- 21 January 2021, pp 196-202
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10 - Global production and economics
- Edited by Dave Checkley, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, Jürgen Alheit, Yoshioki Oozeki, Claude Roy
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- Climate Change and Small Pelagic Fish
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- 08 January 2010
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- 20 August 2009, pp 256-274
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Summary
Global production and trade in small pelagic fish (SPF) are affected by complex interactions between physical, ecological and economic systems, which give rise to relatively long-term, asynchronous cycles in SPF abundance and distribution. These cycles can have serious impacts on local SPF fisheries' production, but because they tend to be counterbalancing, global production of SPF tends to remain relatively stable. Nevertheless, recent patterns of landings indicate that most SPF are being harvested at or near their maximum yield levels, which in the face of increasing demand is expected to result in rising prices in supply-limited markets. Adding to these concerns are the uncertainties of climate change, which leads us to consider important economic issues related to SPF fisheries production, starting with how the redistribution of SPF resources affects respective rates of resource utilization, particularly when SPF move between independently managed fishing zones. This entails an associated issue, the time preferences for experiencing the range of benefits from SPF resources among nations sharing access to these resources. Because the ecological and economic impacts of climate change will extend well beyond directed SPF fisheries, we consider the economic impact of a climate–SPF regime shift from an ecosystem perspective. Of interest here is the full range of economic benefits SPF resources provide; not only their commercial value, but as prey for commercially valuable predators, and for recreational and non-commercial predators. In this context we examine the socially optimum use of these resources, balancing the benefits from commercially harvesting SPF with those from leaving them in the ocean ecosystem.