Economic value of sustainable fisheries Rupert Crilly nef (the new economics foundation) and OCEAN2012

Overview Economic potential of fish stocks Report: Jobs Lost at Sea How fish are caught matters: Report: Value Slipping through the Net Concluding remarks NB: All data presented are official or calculations based on official or academic data. Full explanations, lists of materials and methods, results and references can be found on the nef website.

We’ve all seen the graphs that look like this… Time trends of community biomass in oceanic (a–i) and shelf (j–m) ecosystems. Relative biomass estimates from the beginning of industrialized fishing (solid points) are shown with superimposed fitted curves from individual maximum-likelihood fits (solid lines) and empirical Bayes predictions from a mixed-model fit (dashed lines). Biomass of large predatory fish today is only about 10% of pre-industrial levels Myers & Worm (2003), Nature

To the environment To people To the economy Costs of overfishing Ecosystems at risk (instability, collapse, etc) Irreversible loss (biodiversity) To people Food security Livelihoods at risk To the economy Loss of wealth (lost rents, jobs) Fishing industry at risk 4

Overfishing is a bad economic deal FAO/World Bank estimate the annual cost of overfishing at US$50 billion, totalling US$2 trillion over the last three decades. UK catches for cod, whiting and haddock could be five, four and three times bigger if stocks were allowed to recover, with the potential to increase economic gains ten-fold to more than £500m. 5

Overfishing and the jobs that never were Jobs Lost at Sea: Overfishing and the jobs that never were Our report studied the productive potential of fish stocks, and compared this to their current performance Overfishing is defined relative to MSY A stock can be sustainably fished but still be below MSY. This too is costly in production terms http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y3427e/y3427e07.htm 6

Overfishing and the jobs that never were Jobs Lost at Sea: Overfishing and the jobs that never were Our report studied the productive potential of fish stocks, and compared this to their current performance Which fish stocks? 43 spread across the North East Atlantic, including multiple cod, haddock, herring and sole stocks (note: excludes all Mediterranean stocks) There are more than 150 fish stocks in the EU 7

Difference between current and potential landings for all stocks Estimating economic costs - 1 Difference between current and potential landings for all stocks Landings in 2010 vs MSY Results: 8

Value this difference Results: Estimating economic costs - 2 Using a price per tonne for each stock, on a regional basis Results:

Jobs supported per country Estimating economic costs - 3 Jobs supported per country Fishing Processing Results:

Results for top 10 stocks

Results per country

Rebuild stocks or depend on taxpayer subsidies?

Managing scarce resources Public ownership of the resource… …means the public should gain from its exploitation Fisheries management should seek to deliver positive net returns to society But how are the greatest benefits to be delivered? Broaden focus from economic performance to include social and environmental factors

How fish are caught matters In an era of scarce natural resources, the question of who exploits the resource for public benefit is crucial because this determines the future of the stock Access criteria offer a viable solution Environmental criteria Selective gear Minimise bycatch Minimise ecosystem impacts Social criteria Employment Improve food security Economic criteria Loss of wealth (lost rents, jobs) Subsidies Fishing industry resilience NB all relative because this will promote perpetual competition 15

Case study of an overfished stock: North Sea Cod ICES areas 27.IVa-c

Compare gear type to see which have the highest net societal values Objectives Compare gear type to see which have the highest net societal values There are many factors to consider, but we look at a sample: Economic: revenues, costs & subsidies Environmental: discards & GHG emissions Social: employment But there are many others: Communities Historic and cultural value Stock sustainability (i.e. the impact of removing one tonne from the stock depends on the gear)

The main gears targeting cod in the North Sea are gillnets and trawls 18

Gear selectivity Proportion of catch (by numbers) Landings Discards In numbers, not tonnes

Results Specific to cod fishing, attributed proportionally Presented on a per tonne basis By categories: Gillnets 0-12m, Trawls 0-12m, 12-24m, 24-40m, >40m

Fuel & direct subsidies Largest vessels receive most subsidies

Employment

Net impacts of gear types Gillnets have the largest net benefit to society The larger the trawler, the more costly These results are not reflected in quota allocations

Policy Quota’s should be set in accordance with scientific advice on how to reach BMSY (or BMMSY) Public resources (incl subsidies) allocated to those who fish the most sustainably

Contact: Rupert Crilly rupert.crilly@neweconomics.org nef (new economics foundation) and OCEAN2012