Fish, Markets, and Fishermen

The Economics Of Overfishing

Suzanne Iudicello, Michael L. Weber, Robert Wieland

• Publisher: Island Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781559636438, 9781559636421
• eBook ISBN: 9781610912686
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A significant number of the world's ocean fisheries are depleted, and some have collapsed, from overfishing. Although many of the same fishermen who are causing these declines stand to suffer the most from them, they continue to overfish. Why is this happening? What can be done to solve the problem.

The authors of Fish, Markets, and Fishermen argue that the reasons are primarily economic, and that overfishing is an inevitable consequence of the current sets of incentives facing ocean fishermen. This volume illuminates these incentives as they operate both in the aggregate and at the level of day-to-day decision-making by vessel skippers. The authors provide a primer on fish population biology and the economics of fisheries under various access regimes, and use that information in analyzing policies for managing fisheries. The book:

• provides a concise statistical overview of the world's fisheries
• documents the decline of fisheries worldwide
• gives the reader a clear understanding of the economics and population biology of fish
• examines the management issues associated with regulating fisheries
• offers case studies of fisheries under different management regimes
• examines and compares the consequences of various regimes and considers the implications for policy making

The decline of the world's ocean fisheries is of enormous worldwide significance, from both economic and environmental perspectives. This book clearly explains for the nonspecialist the complicated problem of overfishing. It represents a basic resource for fishery managers and others-fishers, policymakers, conservationists, the fish consuming public, students, and researchers-concerned with the dynamics of fisheries and their sustenance.

Chapter 1

Not Enough Fish in the Sea

Until recently, in the balance between productivity of fish populations and people’s ability to catch fish, the fish were favored.¹ Although fishing did deplete some fish populations before World War II, most of them survived the rudimentary technology of the times. Cotton nets, hand lines, coastal vessels with short ranges, and the individual fisherman’s eyesight, experience, and fish-finding capability circumscribed fishing capacity. This balance changed rapidly, however, as innovations triggered by research and development for the war effort were introduced into fishing fleets. Fiberglass for lighter and cheaper hulls, synthetic line for larger and lighter nets, diesel engines, and electronic gear for locating productive fishing grounds suddenly increased fishermen’s ability to find and catch fish.

Innovations in processing, transport, and marketing of fish increased its availability in some countries. These innovations, together with rising human populations and affluence in western Europe, the United States, and Japan especially, increased demand. Whether motivated by dreams of riches or dreams of feeding the world’s poor with cheap protein, governments and businesses invested in more and larger fishing vessels and infrastructure to tap seemingly inexhaustible fish populations.

Now, in many fisheries around the world, fishing fleets are far larger than is necessary to catch the amount of fish that fish populations can produce over the long run. This imbalance has already caused economic and ecological dislocation in some of the world’s premier fisheries, such as the groundfish fishery off New England and Newfoundland.

Trends in World Fisheries

Far from being a local affair, fishing is a global business that generates billions of dollars in trade and fuels economic development in several countries. Since World War II, landings of marine fish and shellfish have grown worldwide, from 16.3 million metric tons² in 1950 to 91.3 million metric tons in 1995 (FISHSTAT 1997) (see figure 1.1). Between 1950 and 1976, when the United States and many other countries extended their fishery jurisdiction to 200 nautical miles³ offshore, landings grew at an annual average rate of 5 percent (see figure 1.2). The rate of growth in landings declined to 1.7 percent in the 1970s and then grew to 3.6 percent in the 1980s (Garcia and Newton 1997). Landings peaked at 86.4 million metric tons in 1989 and then fell for only the third time since 1950 (FISHSTAT 1997).

Figure 1.1. Worldwide Production of Marine Fish and Shellfish

(source: FISHSTAT 1997)

Figure 1.2. Total U.S. Marine Landings, 1950-1995

(source: FISHSTAT 1997)

Since 1950, pelagic (open ocean) species such as sardines, tuna, and mackerels have dominated world landings, accounting for more than 60 percent of the world catch in 1994 (Grainger and Garcia 1996). The importance of pelagic species in landings varies among regions. For instance, in the Pacific Ocean, pelagic species have accounted for as much as 59 percent of the catch, whereas in the Indian Ocean, they account for less than half. The decline in the Peruvian anchoveta in 1970 largely explains the slowing in the rate of growth in landings during this period.

Many pelagic fish populations undergo large, decade-long shifts in abundance over entire ocean basins. These fluctuations are thought to be climate-driven and account for the ups and downs in overall landings. For example, a dramatic decline in populations of Peruvian anchoveta in the early 1970s largely explains the decline in the rate of growth in landings during that period (Garcia and Newton 1997). Similarly, a decline in South American and Japanese pilchard accounts for much of the decline in worldwide landings in the early 1990s.

The other main group of fishes are demersal fishes, that is, species associated with the ocean bottom. This group, which includes most of the higher-value fishes, accounted for half the value of world landings in 1993, compared with 40 percent for pelagic species (Grainger and Garcia 1996). A decline in demersal species such as cod and haddock in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean contributed to a slower growth rate in world landings in the 1980s (Garcia and Newton 1997). From 1970 to 1992, landings of the four principal demersal species—Atlantic cod, silver hake, haddock, and Cape hake—declined by 67 percent, from 5.0 million metric tons to 1.6 million metric tons.

This period also saw a dramatic increase in international trade in fish products. Between 1950 and 1980, the percentage of fish landings that entered international trade rose from 20 percent to 33 percent (OECD 1997). Between 1980 and 1993, the value of traded fish products rose from $2.9 billion to nearly $40 billion (OECD 1997). The deficit in trade among developed countries, which accounted for 85 percent of imports by value, grew from $700 million in 1969 to about $15 billion in 1990 (Garcia and Newton 1997). Of the developed countries, only the United States decreased imports, entirely as a result of its declaration of a 200-nautical-mile fishery zone off its shores, which includes the enormous Alaska groundfish fishery.

Developing countries increased their share of exports from 32 percent in 1969 to 44 percent in 1990 while keeping their imports below 13 percent of world trade (Garcia and Newton 1997). As a result, these countries increased their positive trade balance from $500 million to $10.6 billion. In many developing countries, high-value species such as shrimp and tuna are exported and lower-value species enter local and national markets.

Roughly 60 percent of world fish landings are destined for direct human consumption; the balance is processed, principally into fish meal and fish oil (FISHSTAT 1997; OECD 1997). Between 1950 and 1982, the percentage of catch distributed fresh fell from nearly half to 20 percent (OECD 1997). Improvements in freezing techniques led to slightly more than a fourfold increase in the percentage of fish that entered markets frozen, from 5 percent to 22 percent.

Real prices of fish rose after 1970, fell slightly in the early 1980s, and then rose again slightly (OECD 1997). By 1994, the average price per ton ranged from $235 for herring, sardines, and anchovies to $11,800 for lobster. As a group, the price of cod, hake, and haddock rose from $700 per ton in 1989 to $1,060 per ton in 1994, reflecting declines in abundance of these groundfishes. Prices of other species declined. Most dramatically, the price of salmon and trout fell from $3,500 per ton to $2,750 per ton between 1989 and 1994. An increase in salmon farming explains most of this price decline. By 1995, salmon farms in Norway, Chile, Scotland, and other countries were producing about one-third of the salmon entering the market.

Leading Fishing Countries

Several factors contributed to a shuffling of the leading fishing countries in the late 1980s. The fall of the Soviet Union and the consequent loss of state subsidies caused many ocean-roving vessels of the former Soviet Union to tie up at docks. Rising labor costs, among other things, caused Japan’s government and fishing industry to move from depending on domestic fleets for supplies to using fleets from other countries, particularly Taiwan and Korea (Weber 1997a). Recovery of the Peruvian anchoveta renewed Peru’s fisheries.

The need of developing countries to generate foreign exchange also contributed to changes in the top fishing countries. Of the top ten fishing countries in 1995, six—China, Peru, Chile, India, Indonesia, and Thailand—were developing countries. One other country, the Russian Federation, was classified as an economy in transition. Japan and the United States ranked fourth and fifth, after China, Peru, and Chile.

With the exception of Peru, developing countries have shown dramatic and steady increases in landings of marine fish and shellfish. Between 1977 and 1995, Chile increased its landings from 1.3 million metric tons to 7.5 million metric tons, and India increased its landings from 1.4 million metric tons to 2.7 million metric tons. During the same period, marine production by Indonesia grew from 1.2 million metric tons to 3.3 million metric...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Not Enough Fish in the Sea
• Chapter 2 - What Economics Has to Do with Fishing
• Chapter 3 - Biology, Economics, and Bioeconomics of Fish Populations
• Chapter 4 - The Effect of Subsidies
• Chapter 5 - Managing Fisheries Rationally: Framework and Tools
• Chapter 6 - Case Studies
• Chapter 7 - Conclusion: No New Quota?
• Reference
• Index
• Island Press Board of Directors