Assessing potential economic benefits from rebuilding depleted fish stocks in Canada

Abstract

Rebuilding fish populations worldwide is urgently needed, but socio-economic concerns often slow down or even prevent the process of rebuilding fish stocks. To address this concern we conduct an economic analysis of rebuilding six depleted Canadian fish stocks under different biological and management scenarios. Rebuilding scenario projections are based on underlying fish stock assessments and fish species’ life history traits, and thus are also influenced by uncertainties in these parameters. We find that rebuilding generates economic gains for five of the six fish stocks in the long term, with estimated economic gains under the most and least optimistic scenarios reaching up to 11 times and 5 times above the status quo, respectively. In most cases, fishery closure generates higher potential economic gains compared to a low-fishing strategy, regardless of the rate of fish stock recovery. Intergenerational discounting increases estimated economic benefits, thereby emphasizing the importance of taking a long-term perspective to fisheries rebuilding. Our results suggest that bearing the short-term economic costs of rebuilding can lead to future economic benefits, which in the long term are an improvement over maintaining the status quo.