Abstract
It is accepted that world’s fisheries are not generally exploited at their biological or their economic optimum. Most fisheries assessments focus on the biological capacity of fish stocks to respond to harvesting and few have attempted to estimate the economic efficiency at which ecosystems are exploited. The latter is important as fisheries contribute considerably to the economic development of many coastal communities. Here we estimate the overall potential economic rent for the fishing industry in the North Atlantic to be B€ 12.85, compared to current estimated profits of B€ 0.63. The difference between the potential and the net profits obtained from North Atlantic fisheries is therefore B€ 12.22. In order to increase the profits of North Atlantic fisheries to a maximum, total fish biomass would have to be rebuilt to 108Mt (2.4 times more than present) by reducing current total fishing effort by 53%. Stochastic simulations were undertaken to estimate the uncertainty associated with the aggregate bioeconomic model that we use and we estimate the economic loss NA fisheries in a range of 2.5 and 32billion of euro. We provide economic justification for maintaining or restoring fish stocks to above their MSY biomass levels. Our conclusions are consistent with similar global scale studies.
Highlights
Marine fisheries are an important source of food and livelihood opportunities worldwide (Allison et al, 2009; Garcia & Rosenberg, 2010; Rice & Garcia, 2011)
We don’t use the estimated Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by ICES area for the basinscale analysis, the differences between estimates arising from different levels of aggregation were used to calculate the confidence limits of MSY in the North Atlantic, which were used as inputs for the bioeconomic model
North Atlantic fisheries were considered to be under development up to 1970s, when total landings started to exceed MSY considerations
Summary
Marine fisheries are an important source of food and livelihood opportunities worldwide (Allison et al, 2009; Garcia & Rosenberg, 2010; Rice & Garcia, 2011). The exploitation state of fish stocks is hotly debated (Branch et al, 2011; Pauly et al, 2002; Worm et al, 2009), but there is a general consensus that marine fisheries food production potential is not achieved (Branch et al, 2011; FAO, 2012). Classic approaches assume that these dynamics operate at a particular stock level, depending on the species’ life history and should fisheries management succeed in maintaining each of them at their MSY, the maximum potential of food production from marine ecosystems would be achieved. Using Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) and fish species data from the Sea Around Us database, the food production potential wasted due to ineffective management was estimated, i.e., the difference between catch observations and their MSY estimated from historic catch series (Srinivasan et al, 2010). Using Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) and fish species data from the Sea Around Us database, the food production potential wasted due to ineffective management was estimated, i.e., the difference between catch observations and their MSY estimated from historic catch series (Srinivasan et al, 2010). Srinivasan et al (2010) estimated that catch losses amounted to 7-36% of the reported annual catch, resulting in a landed value loss between $6.4 billion and $36 billion
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