INCOFISH Work Package 8
Deliverable 8.4
Project no: INCO 003739
Project acronym: INCOFISH
Project title: Integrating Multiple Demands on Coastal Zones with Emphasis on
Aquatic Ecosystems and Fisheries
Instrument: Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP)
Thematic Priority: International Cooperation
Deliverable 8.4:
Policy insights
Due date of deliverable: January 31, 2007
Actual submission date: January 10, 2007
Start date of project: 01/05/2005
Duration: 3 years
Organisation name of lead contractor for this deliverable: University of Namibia
Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme
(2002-2006)
Dissemination
Level
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PU
Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission
PP
Services) to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission
Restricted
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Services)
Confidential,
only for members of the consortium (including the Commission
CO
INCOFISH Work Package 8
Deliverable 8.4
Services)
Policy insights
Ussif Rashid Sumaila1, Claire Armstrong2, Kevin Stephanus1,
Patricia Susan Alexander1, Annabelle Cruz Trinidad3, Ratana Chuenpagdee4, Jannike
Falk-Petersen2, and Moenieba Isaacs5
______________________________
1
University of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia.
3
University of Tromso, Tromso, Norway.
4
Primex Foundation for the Alternative Management of the Environment.
5
Coastal Development Centre, Bangkok, Thailand.
6
University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa.
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Acknowledgements
The report is the fourth deliverable of Work Package 8 to the EU-funded INCOFISH
project, Integrating Multiple Demands on Coastal Zones with Emphasis on Aquatic
Ecosystems and Fisheries (Project no. INCO 003739). We would like to thank Daniel
Pauly and the Sea Around Us Project for their collaboration.
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Outline of Report
Policy statements based on the results of our research
Special focus on Namibia and Thailand
Stakeholder involvement
Project publications
Conclusion
1
Scope of the report
This contribution draws from the work of Work Package 8 to develop policy statements
that will benefit fisheries policy makers especially in the developing world. We first give
general insights from our global level products and then follow this with a more focused
treatment of Namibia and Thailand, our two case study countries. We next describe our
various stakeholder involvement, the efforts we made to inform relevant stakeholders of
our research findings through the popular media, workshops, public lectures, etc.
Policy insights for fisheries management
It is generally accepted that global fisheries are in trouble (Pauly et al., 2002) and that the
current state of global fisheries has resulted in (a) a rise in distant water fishing (Alder
and Sumaila, 2004); (b) an increase in fishing access agreements between countries in the
North and the south (Kaczynski and Fluharty 2002); (c) an increase in global trade of fish
products (Anderson, 2003); (d) increasing use of fisheries subsidies (Milazzo, 1998;
Sumaila and Pauly, 2006); (e) rise in illegal; unreported and unregulated fishing (OECD,
2004; Sumaila et al., 2006, High Seas Task Force, 2006); (f) drive to extend fishing to the
deep and high seas (Morato et. al. 2006; Sumaila et al. 2006); and (g) increasing (and
misplaced) faith in aquaculture as the solution to dwindling wild fish stocks (FAO, 2007;
Liu and Sumaila, in press). Each of these developments has implications to all maritime
countries, in particular, the developing nations.
Until now, fisheries development simply meant more boats and more people out fishing.
Instead of this, we suggest that modern fisheries development should be seen in terms of
maintaining and rebuilding overfished stocks such that they can continue to produce
benefits to both current and future generations in a sustainable manner. Modern fisheries
management should seek to optimize the net benefits (in a broad sense) from each unit of
fish taken from the ocean, that is, we should focus on quality rather than the current
emphasis on the quantity of fish caught.
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Three foundations of modern fisheries development as conceived here are (i) know the
state of your fish stocks and ecosystems; (ii) know the value (in a broad sense) of your
fishery resources; and (iii) strengthen fisheries management, especially, monitoring,
control and surveillance. Without these three foundations, fishing nations, especially,
developing countries, cannot hope to sustainably manage the fishery resources in their
waters.
Of these three identified foundations of fisheries management, our Work Package dealt
more with the ‘know the value of your fishery resources’ and the ‘strengthen fisheries
management’. Other work packages of Incofish also deal with these two and the ‘know
the state of your fish stocks and ecosystems’ foundation. We describe below some of the
insights we obtained from our work related the valuation and management foundations in
the next paragraphs.
Marine ecosystems values
The economic theory of valuation of natural and environmental resources calls for a
broad and comprehensive compilation of all values depicted by the preferences of a given
population into a total economic value (Goulder and Kennedy 1997). The theory
stipulates that the total economic value (TEV) should include market1 and nonmarket
values2, which consists of direct use value3; indirect use value4; option value5; existence
value (Krutilla 1967)6; and bequest value (Young 1992)7. As shown in Sumaila (2007),
1
Values traded in the market, e.g., the value of fish caught and sold in the market.
Values not traded in the market, e.g. existence value (see below).
3
Value of ecosystem goods and services that are directly used for consumptive purposes, e.g., the value of
commercial output such as fish harvest.
4
Value of ecosystem goods and services that are used as intermediate inputs to production, e.g., services
such as water cycling and waste assimilation.
5
The potential that the ecosystem will provide currently unknown valuable goods and services in the
future.
6
This is the value conferred by humans on the ecosystem regardless of its use value. This essentially is
what is described as nonuse value in the literature. An environmental good may be valuable merely because
one is happy that it exists, quite apart from any future option to consume it, visit it or otherwise use it. This
value may arise from esthetic, ethical, moral or religious considerations.
7
This value captures the willingness to pay to preserve a resource for the benefit of one’s descendants
3
(future generations).
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few published articles in the leading natural resource and environmental economics
journals consider more than just market values.
On market values
In this project, we set out to study ecosystem values in a broader sense than market
values. As a starting point, we developed an ex-vessel global fish price database, which
was used to determine spatially-specified landed values for all commercially traded fish
caught by all maritime countries of the world from 1950 to the present (Sumaila et al.,
2007). From this study, we discovered that global fish values peaked in the mid 1980s,
and have since been declining.
The policy implications that can be derived from this work are:

Declining catch values imply that action is needed urgently to avoid the further
loss of market values from fisheries;

Measures need to be put in place to stop the further degradation of the ecosystems
and the resources they contain;

Efforts should be made to try to recover and rebuild the resources, as far as it is
possible.
On non-market values
From our study of non-market ecosystem values, it has become clear that people ascribe a
wide range of values to marine ecosystems and the resources they contain. One obvious
contribution ecosystems make to amenity use values is in marine recreational fisheries.
Tisdell (1983) noted that annual expenditures on recreational fishing in Australia exceed
the gross value of commercial fisheries by several-fold. Nunes, van den Bergh, and
Jeroen (2004) estimated that recreation, human health, and marine ecosystem restoration
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Deliverable 8.4
benefits associated with water quality improvements at a popular Dutch beach resort
would be worth at least 225 million euros. Yeo (2002) found in a contingent valuation
survey that visitors to a Malaysian marine park were willing to pay an average of
$US4.20, amounting to nearly $US 400,000 annual benefits. Amenity benefits of restored
marine ecosystems also include nonuse values. Where these values are tangible and wellpublicized across a large population, they can amount to a lot. In one well-known
example, Carson et al. (2003) found in a contingent valuation survey a median
willingness to pay of $30 per U.S. household to avoid another Exxon Valdez oil spill,
adding $3 billion of value. It has been shown in many recent studies that non-market
values are usually many times the market values derived from the ecosystems (Sumaila
and Berman, 2006).
The policy implications that can be derived from this work are:

Policy-makers should take into account the broader values that people ascribe to
marine ecosystems and their resources. Currently, policy-makers put more emphasis
on catch values from marine ecosystems. Without taking into account the total
economic value of the ecosystem, “we are obviously undercounting the benefits”;

Subsequently, more compelling information and “conceptual marketing” tools should
be developed by resource valuation experts together with information and public
relations experts to ensure that policies indigenize these more important non-market
values;

When developing countries engage in global fish trade and sign access agreements,
these broader values must be taken into account. This will help ensure that trade and
access agreements are economically and socially beneficial to them, and ecologically
sustainable;

Involvement and participation of community and local residents is critical for
sustainable tourism development, whether large- or small-scale, and industrial- or
community-based. Policies focusing on fair distribution of wealth and equitable
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Deliverable 8.4
allocation of access can bring about successful management and governance of
coastal tourism;

Knowledge of habit-fishery interactions is growing but there are still large gaps that
call for more research on this apparently important issue. Knowledge of this
interaction will provide policy-makers and fisheries managers the vital information
needed to design policies that modify behaviour on the gears used to fish to support
sustainable fishing;
On discount rates and discounting
Our work confirmed that the process of reducing future benefits to current values, that is,
discounting, is crucial to the sustainable use of natural and environmental resources. The
choice of the discount rate applied to discount future benefits derived from environmental
resources through time can lead to outright depletion of marine resources.
Policy implications here include:

Many believe that ecosystem values are discounted too heavily. With high
discount rates, no matter how large the flow of current value benefits, their
present values are quickly reduced to nothing with time in cost-benefit
calculations. Policy-makers need to ensure that in choosing the discount rates to
use, the interest of future generations in these resources are taken into account;

Education by economists on the consequences of high discount rates on our
ability to manage marine ecosystems for the long term will help public decision
makers get over their scepticism about the need to adopt alternative discounting
approaches.
Indicators of fisheries mismanagement
We developed a number of indicators of
fisheries mismanagement during the course
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Deliverable 8.4
of this project, details of which are reported in our 3rd Deliverable. The indicators
developed are (i) subsidies, consisting of (a) ppercentage of ‘Good’ subsidy to the sum
of ‘Bad + Good’ subsidy; (b) ratio of landed value/‘Bad’ subsidy; (c) amount of ‘Bad’
subsidy per fisher; (d) percentage of fuel subsidy to landed value of bottom trawlers
active in the high seas; (ii) habitat; and (iii) poverty indices.
‘Good’ subsidies (e.g., fisheries management and enforcement programs) help to
maintain or enhance the growth of fish stocks through conservation and monitoring of
catch rates via control and surveillance measures. ‘Bad’ subsidies, such as those for fuel,
result in the growth of fishing effort, which can lead to outright destruction of the natural
resource. ‘Ugly’ subsidies (e.g., buyback or decommissioning programs) can lead to
either decline or growth in fishing effort depending on the context and management
effectiveness.
Policy implications here include:

The use of subsidies to stimulate fishing is still prevalent in many coastal fishing
countries. The effect of most of these subsidies is to encourage overfishing, with the
attendant threat to the sustainability of the resource. Subsidies to the fishing sector
used to make some sense when the oceans were full of fish, which is no more the
case. Hence, the resources devoted to subsidies will be more beneficial to society if it
were used to, for example, strengthen the education of fishers so they will be
equipped to find land-based means of livelihoods. The main message here is that
fishing nations should refrain from giving harmful subsidies that lead to overfishing.

Everything being equal, below poverty line incomes among fishers is negative with
regards to a country’s ability to manage its fisheries sustainably because of the
tendency to do what it takes to meet current needs. The key policy message here is
that, fishing nations need to develop policies and programmes to reduce poverty
among coastal fishing communities;

A bottom trawl habitat (or habitat, for
7
short) indicator was developed to help
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countries determine whether there is too much bottom trawling in their waters. This
indicator can help policy makers ensure that their ocean bottoms are not over-trawled.
Focus on Namibia and Thailand
In the following, we focus on Namibia and Thailand, and study three social science
indicators for fisheries (as described in Deliverable 8.3: Socioeconomic Indicators):
subsidies, poverty and the habitat indicators. These indicators are then linked to marine
ecosystem values in the countries (as described in Deliverable 8.2: Ecosystem values)
and management mechanisms present (see Deliverable 8.1: Global Fisheries Socioeconomic Database), in order to say something about policy implications and options for
sustainable fisheries and coastal management.
The aim of the social science indicators presented is to shed some light, give some
indication of the status of Namibian and Thai fisheries. Can social science indicators such
as these explain any of the current problems with regard to sustainability in these marine
ecosystems? And can these indicators shed light on how management can approach
issues of sustainability in marine environments? In order to set the scene for this analysis,
we will start by presenting the situation in these waters of these countries over time.
Namibian fisheries
Namibia has undertaken dramatic changes in the way that fisheries are managed since
independence in 1990 (see Deliverable 8.2). TACs, individual quotas and other incentive
schemes, as well as an advanced vessel observer system, have been introduced.
Nonetheless, several stocks have plummeted, and even relatively long periods of reduced
fishing have not lifted catch up to levels anywhere near the pre-independence levels for
some species (see Figure 1).
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Figure 1. Namibian catches from 1950 to 2004 (Source: Sea Around Us database).
The decline in real landed values from Namibian waters is even more pronounced than
the decline in catches (Sea Around Us database). This in part illustrates the fishing down
of economically valuable species prior to independence and the introduction of
management measures
Thai fisheries
Thai fisheries show a dip in catches in the mid seventies, after a sharp rise in the 1960s
(see Figure 2 below). Since then, however, catches have been increasing, until the mid
nineties when they stabilized. However, the Gulf of Thailand fisheries show a gradual
increase in this latter period. Thai landed values follow a similar pattern.
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Deliverable 8.4
Figure 2. Thai catches from 1950 to 2004 (Source: Sea Around Us database).
Fisheries of Thailand are managed by the Department of Fisheries, using measures such
as area and seasonal closures, gear restrictions, limited entry and mesh size regulations.
These policies aim largely to conserve and protect important habitats and spawning
stocks. For example, trawlers and pushnets are banned within 3 km from the shoreline.
Decentralization of fisheries management is being launched as part of the new fisheries
policies, but its implementation is still restricted to few coastal areas (Juntarashote,
2006).
Subsidy indicator
Subsidies provided by governments around the world are substantial, ranging from
US$14-20 billion estimated in 1998 to a recent estimate of US$30-34 billion per year
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(Sumaila and Pauly, 2006). Subsidies not only contribute to overcapacity, they introduce
distortions into the global market place.
Fisheries in countries that do not provide
overfishing subsidies are disadvantaged because their counterparts in subsidizing
countries can supply fish at a lower price and still make profits.
Data is extracted from a subsidies database (Sumaila and Pauly, 2006), and subsidy
indicators are developed and categorized into (i) ‘good’: subsidies that enhance the
sustainability of fishery resources; (ii) ‘bad’: subsidies that result in overcapacity and
overfishing, and (iii) ‘ugly’: subsidies whose effect can enhance or be detrimental to
sustainability depending on how they are designed and implemented. (Khan et al., 2006).
From this, a number of subsidies indicators have been developed (Sumaila et al., 2006;
Sumaila et.al., in press):
i. Percentage of ‘Good’ subsidies to the sum of ‘Bad + Good’ subsidies;
ii. Ratio of landed value relative to the ‘Bad’ subsidies;
iii. Amount of ‘Bad’ subsidy per fisher;
The first indicator (i) Percentage of ‘Good’ subsidies to the sum of ‘Bad + Good’
subsidies, shows how a country prioritizes subsidy allocations, and gives an indication of
to what degree subsidies have a positive or negative effect on marine sustainability. The
second indicator (ii) Ratio of landed value relative to the ‘Bad’ subsidies, illustrates how
large bad subsidies are relative to the landed values that emanates from the fisheries.
Hence, a large value here can be interpretated as a good thing8. The third indicator: (iii)
8
This indicator could of course also be understood as there being a large catch per unit subsidy, which
would mean that a large indicator number is a negative thing in the understanding of sustainable harvest.
However, from the perspective of all bad subsidies having the same negative effect, the indicator being
11
high shows a high positive value per bad subsidy applied.
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Amount of ‘Bad’ subsidy per fisher; when it is large means that society is spending a lot
of money on bad subsidies to support few jobs.
The table below gives results from the above calculations.
Table 1: Indicator scores of Namibia and Thailand for (i) good as a proportion of good
plus bad subsidies, (ii) landed value (LV) per bad subsidies and (iii) bad subsidies per
fisher.
Country
Good/(Good+Bad)
LV/Bad Subsidy
Bad/Fisher per US$9
Namibia
0.08
2317
16.79
Thailand
0.05
476
0.10
With regards to the two latter indicators, landed values per bad subsidies and bad
subsidies per fisher, both Thailand and Namibia are among the top ten performing
countries. Namibia actually tops the list for the former indicator, with Thailand in second
place. Likewise for the Bad subsidy per fisher; Thailand comes in second place and
Namibia in fourth amongst the top ten performing countries. When it comes to good
subsidies versus the total of Good and Bad subsidies, however, both Thailand and
Namibia come out poorly. Thailand is the fifth worst country, and Namibia is on a shared
10th place amongst the bottom ten performing countries. These results indicate that the
two countries overall have low bad subsidy levels relative to the number of fishers and
the amounts harvested, but have high bad subsidy levels relative to good subsidies. Hence
the relative share of good versus bad subsidies could be improved.
The poverty indicator
9
Clearly, using the purchasing power parity (PPP) to convert the values per fisher to the local purchasing
power gives a better understanding from the individual fisher perspective. However, in this report, the aim
12 effects.
is to compare between countries rather than study local
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In Gordon’s (1954) seminal work, he discusses how profits will attract capacity to
fisheries and how the open access nature of many fisheries results in the entrance of new
fishers until profits are dissipated, leaving fisheries with zero superprofits. However, in
the theory of resource rent, an open access fishery still retains normal rents, i.e., revenues
to cover capital and labour costs. In societies with harsh economic conditions and limited
possibilities for securing an income, the labour costs in a fishery will be pressed down to
the opportunity cost of labour.
In many places fishing is the “employment of last resort”, leaving the possibility for
income from this activity to be very low. In such situations, the pressure to increase effort
in a fishery may be deemed to be great, and hence the connection between fisher incomes
and the general poverty level in a society can give an indication of the pressures that are
put upon fish stocks. Alternatively, in countries where there is active management of the
fisheries (e.g., Namibia), the political pressure that may stem from low employment or
low incomes in fisheries may lead to upward pressures upon catch quotas for the
industry. One possible mechanism for how this feedback works is through the discount
rates of both managers and fishers. Hence, an indicator of fisher income relative to
poverty levels can give an indication of the social and political pressures exerted on fish
stocks.
In Deliverable 8.3, we develop an index based on relative poverty (P-index): Level of
income in the fishing community relative to the poverty line in a country as a whole:
P  index 
Income fishingcommunity
Income poverty line
Data needed to assess the poverty indicator are not easily accessible for either Namibia
and Thailand, and the two countries’ fisheries differ substantially, requiring different
approaches with regards to calculating the
income levels. For Namibia, we choose to
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operate with overall fisheries industry data, including land based processing. This is due
to data availability, but also due to the fact that the Namibian fishing industry is highly
vertically integrated, making overall employment and income levels in the industry
important with regards to fisheries management decisions. In Thailand, the poverty index
is estimated for small-scale fishing sector.
A fish processing worker salary of approximately N$10 per hour with a 9 hour working
day10. This gives an approximate monthly salary of N$1800 (Stephanus pers. com.).
Fishers aboard white fish vessels earn the same fixed income as fish workers on land, but
in addition earn between 6 and 7 N$ per tonnes landed (Stephanus pers. com.). Fishers
constitute 20% of the total work force in the fishing industry, and we will for simplicity
just include the remaining 80%. This monthly wage is compared to the poverty level.
According to van Rooy et al. (2006) the poverty level in 2003 was N$21211 per month,
and based on the CPI index12 we calculate a poverty level for 2007 equal to N$253 per
month, giving a poverty index of 7.1.
In Thailand, the fisheries are less centrally managed, and not as industrial as in Namibia,
hence, the individual fisher income level can be expected to play an important role in the
pressures that are put upon fish stocks. The poverty line of 2006 was 1,386
baht/month/person13 for the country as a whole. For urban areas, the poverty line was
1,661 baht/month/person, while that for rural areas was 1,271 baht/month/person. The
average income for the whole country was 5,221 baht/month/person, which was 8,307 for
urban areas and 3,926 for rural areas (NESDB 2007) The average income of the smallscale fishery sector per boat in the country is around 10,000 baht per month (gross
income) with average net income of 6,000 baht per month (including labor cost)
(Juntarashote, pers.com). In general, small-scale fishing boats are operated by two
persons, i.e., the owner and one crew. The boat owner keeps between 85-90% of the net
10
USD 1 = 6.7 N$ (December 2007).
Van Rooy et.al. calculate the poverty line from an estimated 1993/94 level of N$107 using the CPI.
12
Average CPI for last months of 2004, 12 months for 2005 and 2006 and first 9 months of 2007 were
used.
13
14
USD 1 = 31.60 Baht (2006).
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income and gives the rest to the crew. This means that the monthly income to the crew
members is approximately 900 baht/month at the most, resulting in a P-index of 0.7 when
using the rural measure for poverty. However, the average fisher wage would be much
higher given that the vessel owner who also is onboard earns approximately 5100
baht/month. On average the P-index is 2.4 for Thailand.
Bottom Trawling Habitat indicator
Habitat loss is increasingly being focused upon as a possible reason for fish stock decline
(Botsford et al. 1997). Bottom trawling and dredging have especially been seen as a
threat to habitats, but also other gear types have been shown to have effects upon
especially sensitive habitats (Husbø et al. 2002; Chuenpagdee et al. 2003). However, we
will focus on bottom trawling, because of its much higher impact than other more passive
gears, and greater prevalence than dredging.
In Deliverable 8.3, a bottom trawling (or habitat) indicator is for the first time presented,
in an attempt to crudely measure habitat health. The indicator is calculated by using the
percentage of bottom trawl (BT) catch to total catch;
IHAB = Ht/Ho
where Ht is the amount of catch in tonnes that is taken with bottom trawl by a country or
within an area. Ho is the total catch in tonnes.
IHAB gives an indication of the habitat health in a country’s waters, or in the area studied.
That is, a large IHAB could indicate a highly disturbed bottom habitat. As this habitat
index only relates to the catch, we nonetheless only have a limited understanding of the
pressures on the habitats. If, for instance, the BT harvest is very valuable relative to other
catch, there is pressure in excess of the relative size of the catch. Hence an additional
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index, the bottom trawling habitat index of pressure, is applied to give an indication of
the relative economic pressures:
IHAB pressure = IHAB in value / IHAB in tonnes
This index gives an additional indication regarding the pressures upon the habitat, where
an IHAB pressure greater than one indicates that the pressures are in excess of that purely
explained by the habitat index using tonnes. For instance, a country can have a very low
IHAB, but if the IHAB pressure is greater than 1, the relative pressures upon bottom habitats
is greater than the relative size of the BT harvest would indicate. That is, the high relative
value of BT catches can be expected to attract more BT effort than the catch indicates.
The habitat indicators for Namibia and Thailand are presented in Table 2.
Table 2. The habitat indices for Namibia and Thailand; IHAB of bottom trawl (BT) catch
as percent of total catch. IHAB pressure is the percentage of total landed value which is
taken using BT, divided by the IHAB in tonnes, in 2004 (Source: Sea Around Us project
database).
Country
IHAB %BT tonnes
IHAB pressure
Namibia
11.7
1.6
Thailand
52.1
1.3
Thailand has one of the highest IHAB levels of the countries in the database, only “beaten”
by New Zealand, Greenland and Vietnam (see Deliverable 8.3). Namibia has a relatively
low IHAB, similar to other countries with large pelagic fisheries. For both countries, the
IHAB pressure indicator is greater than one, indicating that the economic pressures are
likely to be towards greater bottom trawling activities, though this is clearly more of an
issue in Namibia than in Thailand.
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Deliverable 8.4
Policy issues
There are at least two possible ways the social science indicators presented here can be
used; for one, they could be part of a holistic set of indicators illustrating the health of the
marine environments in the countries studied. Secondly, they can visualize some ways
where policy makers should or should not (depending on how favorably the countries are
according to the indicators) take action with regard to management of fisheries. In the
following, we discuss the results emanating from each indicator for Namibia and
Thailand.
Subsidies
The indicators show that both countries have a very low level of good subsidies relative
to bad, underlining the need for governments in both countries to reassess their modes of
subsidization of their fisheries. Nonetheless, both countries are doing a good job of
keeping subsidies related to number of fishers and landed value low. That is, the overall
level of subsidization seems low compared with the volume and importance of the fishery
with regard to employment.
Poverty
Both Namibia and Thailand have poverty indicators that are on average well over 1,
indicating that pressures to enter the fishery does not necessarily emanate from the need
to survive. On the contrary, fishing seems to be a relatively lucrative activity compared to
other employment in both Namibia and Thailand (though it is clear that crew members in
Thailand have very low wage levels). Hence, the argument of pressures upon stocks from
subsistence effort supply does not seem relevant. Nonetheless, the high level of income
points to there being possible wealth effects that may equally cause pressure upon
fisheries. That is, when income levels by far exceed poverty levels, wealth is created,
which may be invested in increased fishing effort. Here, clearly issues of debt levels as
described in Deliverable 8.3 may be more relevant to illustrate pressures upon fish
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resources. We have however not been able to collate this data for Namibia and Thailand.
Bottom trawl habitat indicators
Thailand’s large habitat index seems to indicate the need to ascertain the degree of
damage from bottom trawling in Thai waters. That is, it would be advantageous to obtain
a greater knowledge of the extent of ocean areas covered by trawling activity, and the
frequency of the trawling over specific areas. Furthermore, it is important to gain a
greater understanding of how this trawling activity affects habitats that are trawled over,
and how this again feeds into ecosystem functions, and thereby into the commercial
stocks and their prey. From this, one can determine whether or not trawling is creating an
externality in the fishery, which not only damages other fisheries, but potentially also the
trawl fishery as well.
Though on first glance it may seem as if this is a non-existent problem for Namibia, it is
wise to remember that Namibia’s large pelagic and midwater fisheries mask the fact that
there is substantial trawling activity in Namibian waters. It is not well known as to what
kind of habitats are being trawled, and the effect upon species, as mentioned above for
Thailand.
Some final thoughts
For a full understanding of whether the indicators above can describe the situation in the
fisheries of Namibia and Thailand, a more thorough study of the indicators over time is
needed. It seems clear, however, that these indicators are only among a larger set of
indicators that would describe the complete situation in the fishery. The presented
indicators do however point to some issues that may be of importance to the fishery and
its current situation, such as bad subsidies, pressures from increased effort and habitat
destruction, and thereby indicate how policy should be formed in order to move towards
more sustainably managed fisheries.
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19
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References (excluding project publications)
Alder, J. and Sumaila, U.R., (2004). Western Africa: a fish basket of Europe past and
present. Journal of Environment and Development, 13(2), 156-178.
Anderson, J.L. (2003). The International Seafood Trade. Woodhead Publishing, Oxford.
Botsford, L. W., Castilla, J. C., Peterson, C.H. (1997). The Management of Fisheries and
Marine Ecosystems. Science, 277(5325) pp 509-515.
Carson, R.T, Mitchell, R.C., Hanemann, M., Kopp, R.J., Presser, S., Ruud, P.A. 2003.
Contingent Valuation and Lost Passive Use: Damages from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.
Environmental and Resource Economics 25(3): 257-86.
Nunes, P., van den Bergh, A. L. D., Jeroen, C. J. M. 2004.Can people value protection
against invasive marine species? evidence from a joint TC-CV survey in the Netherlands.
Environmental and Resource Economics 28(4): 517-32.
Tisdell, C.A. 1983. Economic problems in managing Australia's marine resources.
Economic Analysis and Policy 13(2): 113-141. reprinted in Tisdell, C.A. Economics and
ecology in agriculture and marine production: Bioeconomics and resource use.
Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Mass.: Elgar, 2003.
Yeo, B.H. 2002. Valuing a marine park in Malaysia. Valuing the environment in
developing countries: Case studies Pearce, D., Pearce, C., Palmer, C., eds., Cheltenham,
U.K. and Northampton, Mass.: Elgar: 311-26.
Chuenpagdee, R., Morgan, L.E., Maxwell, S.M., Norse, E.A., and Pauly, D. (2003).
Shifting gears: assessing collateral impacts of fishing methods in the U.S. waters.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1(10):517-524.
FAO (2007). The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2006. Fisheries and
Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
Rome, Italy. 180p.
Gordon, H. S. (1954). Economic theory of common-property resources: the fishery.
Journal of Political Economy, 62 pp 124-142.
Goulder, H. and Kennedy, D. (1997). Valuing ecosystem services: Philosophical bases
and empirical methods. In Nature’s services: Societal dependence on natural ecosystems
(editor. G. C. Daily), pp. 23–48. Washington, DC: Island Press.
High Seas Task Force (2006). Closing the net: stopping illegal fishing on the high seas,
Governments of Australia, Canada, Chile, 20Namibia, New Zealand, and the United
INCOFISH Work Package 8
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Kingdom, WWF, IUCN, and the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Husbø, A., Nøttestad, L., Fosså, J.H., Furevik, D.M. Jørgensen, S.B. (2002). Distribution
and abundance of fish in deep-sea coral habitats. 471, pp 91-99.
Juntarashote, K. (2006). Decentralized management: the new approach of Thai coastal
fishery management. JIFRS 7 (1-2): 55-65.
Kacznski, V. M. and Fluharty, D.L. (2002). European policies in West Africa: Who
benefits from fisheries agreements? Marine Policy, 26: 75-93.
Krutilla, J. 1967. Conservation reconsidered. American Economic Review 57:787–796.
Liu, Y. and Sumaila, U.R. (in press). Can Farmed Salmon Production Keep Growing?
Marine policy.
Loomis, J. B., and R. Richardson. 2001. Economic values of U.S. wilderness systems:
Research evidence to date and questions for the future. International Journal of
Wilderness 7:31–34.
Milazzo, M. (1998). Subsidies in World Fisheries: A Re-examination. World Bank
Technical Paper No. 406, World Bank, Washington, p. 86.
Morato, T., R Watson, Pitcher, T.J., Pauly, D. (2006). Fishing down the deep. Fish and
Fisheries 7, 24.
NESDB 2007. Poverty and Income Distribution. The National Economic and Social
Development Board. Thailand. (http://poverty.nesdb.go.th).
OECD (2004). Fish Piracy. Combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing.
Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation, Paris, France.
Pauly D., Christensen V., Guenette S., Pitcher T.J., Sumaila U.R., Walters C. J., Watson
R. and D. Zeller (2002). Towards sustainability in world fisheries; 418 (6898): 689-695.
van Rooy, G., Roberts, B., Schier, C., Swartz, J., Levine, S. (2006). Income poverty and
inequality in Namibia. Multi-Disciplinary Research and Consultancy Centre Discussion
Paper No. 1:2006, Namibia. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=962314
Young, M.D. 1992, Sustainable Investment and Resource Use: Equity, environmental
integrity and economic efficiency, volume 9, Man and the Biosphere Series, UNESCO,
Paris.
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Stakeholder involvement
Our team has been very active in taking the results of our study to stakeholders through
various means (workshops, public speeches, newspaper interviews, radio and television
engagements) during the course of the project, and reported in our monthly progress
reports. We provide a few highlights of these events below..
Claire Armstrong: Presented; Habitats and fisheries; A missing link? At the SINTEF
workshop; Value Creation in the Nordic Countries of Fisheries and Aquaculture in
Akureyri, Iceland, 11.-12. October;
Rashid Sumaila: Gave a briefing to the G77 at the United Nations, Oct. 3; 2007. See
attachments; presentation at a workshop on the Economics of Ecosystem Based Fisheries
Management, Washington, D.C, October 15-17.
Sumaila was quoted in Time Magazine, Sept. 19, 2007 9 (see
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1663604,00.html
Rashid Sumaila, contributed to the cover article for the most recent issue of Conservation
Magazine (a publication of the Society for Conservation Biology): see
http://www.conbio.org/CIP/article30713.cfm;
Our recent paper on ex-vessel prices (Sumaila et al. in Journal of Bioeconomics) was
cited by Steven D. Levitt the famous co-author of Freakonomics: see
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/shrimponomics/ ; August 30, 2007;
Abbie Trinidad presented work non market values at the Coastal Zone 2007 Conference
in Portland. She has also been developing a
draft paper on the same. Abbie has also
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Deliverable 8.4
been developing a preliminary list of "buzz words" for calculating political sensitivity
indices and poverty indices for the Philippines; She has also been working with Work
package 1 to develop a visual tool which shows summary information on non-market
valuation studies in coastal ecosystems
Abbie Trinidad, in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Marine Science
Institute and the GEF Coral Reef Targetted Research Project, is first author of a paper
entitled “Development trajectories and impacts on coral reef use in Lingayen Gulf,
Philippines” accepted by Ocean and Coastal Management, focusing on non-market
valuation of coral reefs
Ratana Chuenpagdee presented her work on indicators and CTAM at Coastal Zone 2007
Conference in Portland. Ratana has also been working on poverty indices for Thailand;
Rashid convened two special sessions, one on discounting and the other on fisheries
subsidies at the North American Association of Fisheries Economists (NAAFE)
conference, March 27-30.
Sumaila gave two talks, one at the 2007 AAAS Annual Meeting 15-19 February • San
Francisco, on subsidies to deep sea fisheries:
http://www.aaas.org/meetings/Annual_Meeting/. The second at the Woodrow Wilson
Centre for International Scholars: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ on globalization and
fisheries in developing countries, Feb 22, 2007.
Jannike Falk Petersen: Participated in the Arctic Frontiers conference and PhD workshop,
21-26 January, Tromsø. Poster presentation"Ecosystem-based modelling for management
of the Barents Sea benthos and related fisheries". PhD workshop presentation "Arctic
ecosystems -are they vulnerable?".
Claire Armstrong: Participated in the
Norwegian Economists Annual Conference
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(Forskermøtet), 4.-5. January, Tromsø. Presentation: Effects of foreshortening of
transferred quota in an ITQ market.
Sumaila made a presentation on fisheries subsidies at the World Bank, Washington D.C.
on October 30th, 2006 (Presentation to be uploaded on the portal).
Claire Armstrong participated at the ISRS European Meeting in Bremen 19-25,
September 2006. Presented: The formation of policy for protection of cold-water corals
off the coast of Norway;
Sumaila made a presentation on fuel fisheries subsidies at the 136th American Fisheries
Society Annual Meeting in the legendary Olympic Village of Lake Placid, NY, 10-14
September 2006;
Sumaila gave a talk in a panel session on the potential benefits of restoring depleted fish
stocks at the California and the World Oceans Conference in Long Beach, California,
September, 17-20, 2006.
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Work Package Publications
1. Abdallah, P.R. and Sumaila, U.R. (2007). A historical account of Brazilian policy on
fisheries subsidies. Marine Policy 31, 444-450.
2. C.W. Armstrong, A note on the ecological-economic modelling of marine reserves.
Ecological Economics 62, 242-250, 2007
3. Ainsworth, C.H. and Sumaila, U.R. (2005). Intergenerational valuation of fisheries
resources can justify long-term conservation: a case study in Atlantic cod (Gadus
morhua). Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 62: 1104-1110.
4. Bailey, M., Rotinsulu, C., and Sumaila, U.R. (in press) The Migrant Anchovy Fishery
in Kabui Bay, Raja Ampat, Indonesia: Catch, Profitability, and Income Distribution.
Marine Policy.
5. Berman, M. and Sumaila, U.R. (2006). Discounting, amenity values and marine
ecosystem restoration. Marine Resource Economics. 21 (2) 211-219.
6. Chuenpagdee, R., Liguori, L., Palomares, M.L.D., and Pauly, D. 2006. Bottom-up,
Global Estimates of Small-Scale Fisheries Catches. Fisheries Centre Research Report
14(8). 110p. (Available at http://www.fisheries.ubc.ca/publications/).
7. Chueng, W. and Sumaila, U.R. (in press). Trade-off between conservation and socioeconomic objectives in managing a tropical marine ecosystem. Ecological
Economics.
8. Clark, C.M., Munro, G., and Sumaila, U.R. (2007). Buyback, subsidies, the time
consistency problem and the ITQ alternative. Land Economics, 83(1), 50-58.
9. Clark, C.W., Munro, G., and Sumaila, U.R. (2005). Subsidies, buybacks, and
sustainable fisheries. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Pages
47-58.
10. Khan, A., Sumaila, U.R., Watson, R., Munro, G., Pauly, D. (2006). The nature and
magnitude of global non-fuel fisheries subsidies. In Sumaila, U.R., Pauly, D. (eds.),
Catching more bait: A bottom-up re-estimation of global fisheries subsidies. Fisheries
Centre Research Reports 14(6), p. 1-34. Fisheries Centre, the University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
11. Liu, Y. and Sumaila, U.R. (in press) Economic analysis of netcage versus sea-bag
production Systems for salmon aquaculture in British Columbia. Aquaculture
Economics and Management.
12. Liu, Y. and Sumaila, U.R. (in press). Can farmed salmon production keep growing?
Marine Policy.
13. Perry, R.I. and Sumaila, U.R., (2007).25
Marine
ecosystem
variability
and
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Deliverable 8.4
human community responses: the example of Ghana, West Africa. Marine Policy
31(2) 125-134.
14. Sharp, R. and U.R. Sumaila (in press). Quantification of U.S. Marine Fisheries
Subsidies. The North American Journal of Fisheries Management.
15. Sumaila, U.R., Marsden, D., Watson, R., and Pauly, D. (2007) Global ex-vessel fish
price database: construction and applications Journal of Bioeconomics, 9, 39-51.
16. Sumaila, U.R., Zeller, D., Watson, R., Alder, J., and Pauly, D. (in press). Potential
costs and benefits of marine reserves in the high seas. Marine Ecology Progress
Series.
17. Sumaila, U.R., and D. Pauly (2007). All fishing nations must unite to end subsidies.
Nature (correspondence), 450: 945.
18. Sumaila, U.R. (2007). Getting Values and Valuation Right: A Must for Reconciling
Fisheries with Conservation. American Fisheries Society Symposium, 49:587-592.
19. Sumaila, U.R., Khan, A., Watson, R., Munro, G., Zeller, D., Baron, N., Pauly, D.
(2007) The World Trade Organization and global fisheries sustainability. Fisheries
Research, 88, 1-4.
20. Sumaila, U.R., Munro, G., and Sutinen, J. (2007). Recent developments in fisheries
economics: An introduction. Land Economics, 83 (1), 1-5.
21. Sumaila, U.R. and Walters, C. (2007). Making future generations count: Comment on
“Remembering the future”. Ecological Economics 60(3), 487-488.
22. Sumaila, U.R., Volpe, J., and Liu, Y. (2007). Potential economic benefits from
sablefish farming in British Columbia. Marine Policy 31(2) 81-84.
23. Sumaila, U.R., Charles,T., and Sylvia, G. (2006). Topical Problems in Fisheries
Economics: An Introduction. Marine Resource Economics. 21(4):337-40.
24. Sumaila, U.R. and Armstrong, C.W. (2006). Distributional and efficiency effects of
marine protected areas: A study of the Northeast Atlantic cod fishery. Land
Economics, 82 (3) 321-332.
25. Sumaila, U.R, Alder, J., and Keith, H. (2006). Global scope and economics of illegal
fishing. Marine Policy, 30(6): 696-703.
26. Sumaila, U.R. and K. Stephanus (2006). Declines in Namibia's pilchard catch: the
reasons and consequences. In Rognvaldur Hannesson, Manuel Barange and Samuel
F. Herrick Jr. Climate Change and the Economics of the World's Fisheries- Examples
of small pelagic stocks. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, pp. 205-214.
27. Sumaila, U.R. (2005). Differences in economic perspectives and the implementation
of ecosystem-based management of marine resources. Marine Ecology Progress
Series, 279-282.
28. Sumaila, U.R., Pauly, D. (eds.) (2006). Catching more bait: A bottom-up reestimation of global fisheries subsidies. Fisheries Centre Research Reports 14(6), 114
pp. Fisheries Centre, the University of26
British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
INCOFISH Work Package 8
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29. Sumaila, U.R., L. Teh, Watson, R., P. Tyedmers, D. Pauly. (2006). Fuel subsidies to
fisheries globally: Magnitude and impacts on resource sustainability. In Sumaila,
U.R., Pauly, D. (eds.), Catching more bait: A bottom-up re-estimation of global
fisheries subsidies. Fisheries Centre Research Reports 14(6), pp. 39-49. Fisheries
Centre, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
30. Sumaila, U.R., Khan, A., Teh, L., Watson, R., Tyedmers, P., Pauly, D. (2006).
Subsidies to high seas bottom trawl fleet and the sustainability of deep sea benthic
fish stocks. In Sumaila, U.R., Pauly, D. (eds.), Catching more bait: A bottom-up reestimation of global fisheries subsidies. Fisheries Centre Research Reports 14(6), pp.
47-51. Fisheries Centre, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
31. Sumaila, U.R., Claire Armstrong, Annabelle Cruz Trinidad, Ratana Chuenpagdee,
Jannike Falk-Petersen2, Kevin Stephanus, Patricia Susan Alexander and Moenieba
Isaacs (2007). Indicators of fisheries mismanagement. Incofish 3rd Deliverable.
32. Sumaila, U.R., Ratana Chuenpagdee, Patricia Susan Alexander, Claire Armstrong,
Jannike Falk-Petersen, Sheila J.J. Heymans, Moenieba Isaacs, Kevin Stephanus, and
Annabelle Cruz Trinidad (2007). Ecosystem values. Incofish 2rd Deliverable.
33. Sumaila, U.R., Ratana Chuenpagdee, Patricia Susan Alexander, Claire Armstrong,
Jannike Falk-Petersen, Sheila J.J. Heymans, Moenieba Isaacs, Kevin Stephanus, and
Annabelle Cruz Trinidad (2007). Global Fisheries Socio-economic Database. Incofish
1st Deliverable.
34. Teh, L., Zeller, D., Cabanban, A.S., The, L., and Sumaila, U.R. (2007) Seasonality
and Historic Trends in the Reef Fisheries of Pulau Banggi, Sabah, Malaysia. Coral
Reefs, 26, 251-263.
35. Teh, L., and Sumaila, U.R. (2007) Malthusian Overfishing in Pulau Banggi? Marine
Policy, 31, 451-457.
36. Teh, L., Cabanban, A., and Sumaila, U.R. (2005). The reef fisheries of Pulau Banggi,
Sabah: A preliminary profile and assessment of ecological and socio-economic
sustainability. Fisheries Research, 76(3), 359-367.
27