Ecological and economic impacts of distant water fishingThree empirical studies

Resumen

In the second half of the 20th century, the industrialization of fishing vessels led to an over-exploitation of marine resources in near-shore areas of traditional fishing nations. As a result, industrialized fishing nations started to explore distant waters, largely unhindered by legal boundaries, to fuel the growing demand of fish and seafood products. While the coming into force of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the 1995 United Nations ¿Fish Stocks Agreement¿, dramatically restructured rights and responsibilities of marine capture fisheries, they left much room for economically inefficient and ecologically unsustainable exploitation of fisheries resources. In three essays, this thesis sheds light on the interplay between industrialized distant water fleets and the often vulnerable regions where they fish. The first essay critically reviews the development of distant water fishing in the tropical world over the past 50 years and provides a quantitative analysis of the relationship between distant water fleets and tropical host countries. It concludes that there is a clear shift in powers from traditional fishing countries to mainly Asian newcomers, and that small and economically weak countries are most vulnerable to exploitative relationships with distant water fishing nations. The second essay addresses the question whether, from an economic point of view, Pacific Island Countries (PICs) should continue granting access to distant water fishing nations or whether they should attempt to develop an own domestic fishing industry. To this end, a newly developed multispecies, multiplayer bioeconomic model is analyzed. It provides the insight that PICs would maximize their profits by phasing out access agreements with distant water fishing nations, replacing these by domestic fishing effort. The alternative is to considerably raise access fees, although this does of course may have different long term consequences. In the third essay, an empirical model is constructed to derive life catch weight from monthly trade data for all major countries involved in Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Bluefin tuna (EBFT) trade between 2005 and 2011. Based on estimated total catch we conclude that that EBFT has persistently been overfished, throughout the entire period. In conclusion, this thesis has contributed to the literature on the impact of distant water fishing on fish stock health in the high seas and tropical Exclusive economic zones, and on the welfare of resource-rich developing countries.