Seafood is enormously important, both as a livelihood and as a source of protein, for people all over the globe. It is at great risk due to overfishing, but also provides great opportunities in terms of growing aquaculture, especially in the Global South. Yet, research addressing this challenge is scarce. A special issue of Marine Resource Economics is taking a lead in filling this gap.
About 60 million people around the globe are engaged in the primary sector of fisheries and aquaculture. A vast majority consists of small-scale artisanal fishers and aquaculture workers in the Global South. Seafood contributed to 17 percent of the global population’s intake of animal protein during 2017.
Exports of seafood from developing countries amounted to USD 88 billion in 2018. Its economic importance is greater than the combined value of other agricultural commodities like meat, tobacco, rice, and sugar. Aquaculture contributes to half of the global seafood production today, compared to less than 10% in 1990. The largest aquaculture producing nations are China, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Philippines, and Bangladesh, all low- or medium-income Asian countries.
Many fish stocks are overfished
Many countries of the Global South have failed to solve the collective action fisheries problem. They have made little to no investment in fisheries management, lack scientifically assessed fish stocks, and most fisheries are open-access.
As a result, opposite to the situation in the Global North, numerous fish stocks in the Global South are overfished and many are severely depleted (Hilborn et al., 2020). To make matters worse, many coastal populations in the Global South are poor and rely on these fish stocks for food security, income, and employment. Many countries in the Global South lack conditions that promote long-term solutions to the collective action problem. They have weak traditions of property rights and often an inability to defend resource access against encroachment from outsiders.
Special focus on marine resources
Economics of Marine Resources in the Global South is a special issue of Marine Resource Economics, which is out in October 2021, to help fill this gap. Six original articles and an extensive overview article deal with various aspects of UN’s 14th sustainable development goal (SDG) Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources and six of its ten linked targets; Conserve coastal and marine areas, End subsidies contributing to overfishing, Sustainable fishing, Increase the economic benefits from the sustainable use of marine resources, Support small-scale fisheries, and Implement and enforce international sea law.
Combines protection with taxes
SDG 14 aims at conserving at least 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, while current estimates indicate less than three percent. One article focuses on how to design Marine Protected Areas (MPA). The results show how low and middle-income countries can design policies that pair the spatial Marine Protected Areas (MPA) location decision with aspatial policies like fuel taxes and then generate stronger ecological gains from MPAs than MPAs alone
Invested in larger vessels
Another study shows how Vietnamese fishers have been able to build larger vessels to fish offshore, increasing the presence of Vietnamese fishers in disputed territories and consequently helping to demonstrate sovereignty. The subsidy has increased the profitability of vessels, with distributional consequences as the greater positive impact observed for owners of larger vessels. On the other hand, there is also evidence of overinvestment in vessels, which may affect the sustainability of Vietnamese fisheries in the long run.
Slow adoption of aquaculture
Aquaculture contributes to a growing share of our total seafood while capture fisheries have plateaued since the 1990s. Whether aquaculture offers an alternative source of income for poor small-scale fishers is less well explored. A study from Chile finds that fishing households may be the least likely, and the slowest ones, to consider conversion to small-scale aquaculture.
In an experimental study from Mexico, the authors study how social aspects like group identity, conditional cooperation, and the establishment of social norms may provide non-conventional tools to improve compliance in the presence of imperfect enforcement, weak institutions, and social norms that accept illegal behavior.
Restricted harvest can improve results
In many Caribbean countries, fishing for queen conch has a long tradition. The meat is part of the traditional cuisines, the large shells are sold as souvenirs and despite that pearls are rare, their high price has generated a major part of queen conch fisher’s income. The open access to those fisheries has led to severe stock depletion and completely closed fisheries. A study on Caribbean Colombia shows how rotational management with long closures and restricted harvest every fifth year could significantly improve economic as well as ecological results for the fishery.
Tax can preserve stocks
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the meant that developing countries could be sovereign managers within the 200 nautical miles Extended Economic Zone (EEZ). Over 90 percent of global catches are taken within the EEZs. However, many developing countries lack a capital-intensive fishing fleet to exploit offshore stocks. Instead, they often grant access to foreign fleets with owners in, for example, the European Union and various Asian countries. Access fees may generate substantial income, but they may come at the expense of foreign fleet overfishing. Studies claim that both EU and Chinese fisheries reported only a minor part of their estimated total catches from West African countries between 2000 and 2010. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing may reduce landings in domestic nearshore fisheries. A study from Ghana investigates the optimal management of small-pelagic species that are targeted by both a domestic artisanal nearshore fleet and a foreign capital-intensive offshore fleet. The results show how a tax on catches by the domestic government applied to the foreign fishers has the potential of preserving the stock and increase domestic income.
Alternative instruments needed
Urgent policy reforms for capture fisheries are still to move away from open access and, explore alternative instruments to manage fisheries in the context of weak institutions, lack of market development, and limited alternatives for employment.
Aquaculture development offers possibilities, but various environmental impacts need to be addressed also in developing countries. Overall, there is growing competition between various activities in coastal areas. These include capture fisheries and aquaculture, but also shipping, tourism, windmills and wind turbines, and other energy production systems, as well as traditional extractive activities, like mining.
Hence, there is a need for more knowledge with an economic perspective on marine spatial planning and how to operationalize a concept like Blue Growth. Aid programs should not fund expansion of fishing fleets or unregulated development of aquaculture, but support to better monitoring and enforcement of fisheries and development of sustainable aquaculture where for instance mangroves are preserved would be constructive help.
Read the special issue of Marine Resource Economics!