Managing the global ocean
as a system: role of
the high seas
U. Rashid Sumaila
Fisheries Economics Research Unit
Sea Around Us project
Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada
r.sumaila@fisheries.ubc.ca
Conference in Honour of Ivar Ekeland, June 18-20, 2014
Ivar and Me
• We can communicate in Norwegian:
– The story of how we met Ivar.
• We both love the ocean and fish:
– Norse, Ekeland, Sumaila & others (2012). Sustainability of
deep sea fisheries. Marine Policy, 36, 307–320.
• We believe we need to find better ways
to discount the future:
– Ekeland, Karp, and Sumaila (forthcoming). Equilibrium
resource management with altruistic overlapping generations.
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
Outline of talk
• Our oceans:
– How important are they to us?
– Are our interactions with them sustainable?
– What is the economic cost of unsustainability?
– Managing the global ocean requires a system
approach.
Our oceans are our lives
• 60% of the world’s population lives
within 60 km of the coast;
• 50% of the oxygen we breathe
generated by the ocean;
• Regulation of earth’s climate;
• Crucial for the Earth’s environmental
balance & survival.
Our oceans are our lives
•
•
•
•
•
Cultural and spiritual values;
Transport/shipping;
Playing grounds for many of us;
Support jobs; livelihoods & incomes;
Source of animal protein for many.
L.Teh
D. Varkey
Fish as base for many activities
Capture
fisheries
Aquaculture
Fishing ports
and jetties
Seafood
processing
Fish stocks
Marine
research
Management
Marine
manufacturing
& services, boat
building
Recreational
fisheries &
tourism
Importance of fish to food security
• Annual ocean fish catch is ~80 million t;
• Fish is a good source of protein, micronutrients, minerals and essential fatty acids;
• Provides 3 billion people up to 15% of
dietary animal protein;
• For low-income food-deficit countries, the
contribution of fish to total animal intake is
nearly 20%.
FAO, State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (2009)
Economic contributions of fisheries
Gross revenues from marine
capture fisheries worldwide
are estimated at between US$
80 and 85 billion annually
(FAO, 2009);
Total impact throughout the
global economy is between
US$ 220 and 235 billion in
2003 (Dyck & Sumaila, 2010).
Marine fisheries employment
100
90
260 million people worldwide
involved in marine fisheries, including
direct and indirect sector
70
60
50
40
30
Direct
Total
Indirect
20
10
Thailand
Nigeria
Myanmar
Pakistan
Philippines
Vietnam
Bangladesh
Indonesia
China
0
India
Employment (million jobs)
80
Top 10 countries providing marine employment
Teh and Sumaila (2011): Fish and Fisheries
Human-ocean interactions
unsustainable
Climate change impacts
Physical/Chemical
changes in the
ocean
 ↑ Sea temperature;
 ↑ acidification;
 Δ ocean current
pattern;
 Δ salinity;
 retreat of sea ice;
 ↑ coastal hypoxic
& oxygen min.
zone;
 ↑ sea level.
Biological / ecological
changes in the ocean
INDIVIDUAL
• Physiology;
• Growth; &
• Body size.
POPULATION
• Distribution;
• Abundance; &
• Recruitment.
COMMUNITY
• Species
composition;
• Invasion/extinction.
ECOSYSTEM
• Productivity; &
• Species interaction.
Cheung, Watson & Pauly (2012): Nature
Examples of unsustainability
• About 20% of the original area of coral reefs
lost (Wilkinson, 2008);
• Sea grasses are disappearing at a rate of
110km2 yr-1 since 1980 (Waycott, 2009);
• Seaweeds in Zanzibar dying as I speak –
climate change blamed; huge economic and
social consequences for many on the island
especially women;
• Habitat destruction from bottom trawling.
Global fish catch and effort
90
Catch (million tonnes)
80
70
60
Catch
50
40
30
20
10
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Year
Global fish catch and effort
25
90
20
70
60
Catch
15
50
40
10
30
20
10
Effort (GW or watts x 109)
Catch (million tonnes)
80
5
Effective effort*
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
*Effective effort indexed on 2000 based on average 2.42% increase annually
Watson et al. (2012): Fish and Fisheries
Company financial data
• Dataset contains information on:
– 1000 top global fishing companies
operating in 43 countries, including
many leading maritime countries;
– Total annual sales value for all
companies is about $21 billion or 25% of
estimated landed value worldwide.
• We analyzed pre-tax profit.
Plimsoll (2011)
Summary of pre-tax profit data
80
Percent
60
40
20
0
-0.02
-0.01
0
0.01
0.02
A: Pre-tax profit share of sales for 1000 fishing
companies
B: Pre-tax profit share of sales for 43 fishing
countries
Sumaila et al. (2012): PLoS One
Subsidies
Beneficial subsidies (‘investment’ programs
in fish stocks);
• Capacity-enhancing (harmful) subsidies
(‘disinvestment’ programs in fish stocks);
• Ambiguous subsidies (programs may
benefit or harm fish stocks).
•
Khan et al. (2006); Sumaila & Pauly (2006)
Global subsidy estimate
Subsidy estimates ($USD
Billions)
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Beneficial
Capacity-enhancing
Developing countries
Ambiguous
Developed countries
Sumaila et al. (2010): J. Bioeconomics
Gains from global fisheries
The current picture:
•Overcapacity in world’s fishing fleets
•Negative economic benefits when
full cost of fishing is accounted for
(Sumaila et al., 2012: PLoS One).
www.thehindu.com
Global Potential Catch Loss
(in million metric t)
Srinivasan et al. (2010): J. Bioeconomics
Food security implications
• Loss of million t of fish per year due to
overfishing and other impacts has huge
food security implications;
• It is estimated that more effective
management of global fish stocks could
create food to avert undernourishment for
about 19 million people worldwide.
Srinivasan et al. (2010): J. Bioeconomics
Managing the global ocean
requires a system approach
Strong human-ocean connection
L.Teh
Nudge stakeholders to cooperate
60
50
Catch
% Shared
40
30
Landed value
20
10
0
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Annual shared fisheries catch and landed value across all
countries 1950-2006 (Teh & Sumaila, in submission.)
Munro (1979): Canadian J. Economics; Sumaila (2013): Book
Climate change fisheries & aquaculture
Cheung et al. (2009) Fish & Fisheries 10: 235-251
Buy insurance by protecting a
sizable portion of the ocean
(e.g., Lauck et al., 1996)
High seas vs. Exclusive
Economic Zones
Exclusive economic zones (light blue) and high seas (dark blue)
Highly connected nature of marine
ecosystems & their fisheries
Block et al (2011) Nature
Doi:10.1038/nature10082
April 13, 2015
Why the ocean is important.
Page 28
Coastal vs. high seas fisheries
Breakdown of high seas and EEZ fisheries (annual average over
the period 2000-2010)
A) Number of species
B) Catch
C) Landed Value
Implication – close high seas to fishing?
Sumaila et al. (In submission.)
Carbon sequestration
versus fish value
• High seas sequesters about 0.448 billion
tonnes of carbon annually;
• Equivalent to 1.644 million tonnes of CO2;
• Using the social costs of carbon we can
estimate a rough value of this ecosystem
service;
• $148 billion per annum (range of $74 - $222
billion);
• High seas fish catch value $16 billion (10
million tonnes).
The high seas & intra-generational
equity: 70% of LV by top 10
Valuation & equity between
generations
“Egoism is the law of perspectives as it applies to feelings
according to which what is closest to us appears to be large and
weighty, while size and weight decrease with our distance
from things” (attributed to Nietzche, 1844-1900).
Future benefits from today’s perspective
Value
Present
Future
Discounting in economics
Concluding remarks
Came from D.C. where I attended Sec. John Kerry’s
Ocean Conference: Our Ocean 2014. You can find
the Secretary’s opening remarks here:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/06/227692.htm
• President Obama announced:
– the creation of ~ 2 mil. km2 of marine protected
areas;
– that his administration is to ensure that all fish sold
in the US is legal and traceable
• The President of Kiribati: his country will
ban commercial fishing in its waters;
• The President of Palau: his country will
create a National Marine Sanctuary that
encompasses 80% of its waters.
Merci!
Gratulere Med Dagen, Ivar!