World Bank - The Sunken Billions: The Economic Justification for Fisheries Reform

provides an overview of trends in global fisheries to set the context for the study.

describes the economic performance of the worlds capture fisheries. The study reviews the main determinants for the economic performance of global fisheries, such as the value of fish production, the cost of factors of production, and productivity trends. The available global data sets are described as a framework for selection of the parameters used in the model. Fisheries are shown to benefit from significant subsidies that often undermine sustainability and maintain inefficiency. Illegal fishing is recognized as a governance failure undermining the economic and biological health of fisheries. Substantial additional work is suggested to remove uncertainties with respect to the magnitude of unrecorded catches at the global level.

presents the approach and method used to build a bioeconomic model of the aggregate global fishery. Additional technical details of the model are provided in the appendixes.

presents the results of the analysis, highlighting the poor economic health of the worlds marine fisheries and the need for greater attention to improving the economic well-being of fisheries and fishers: as a sustainable source of economic growth, as a pathway out of poverty, as a means of contributing to food security, and as a way to build resilience to the impending effects of climate change.

discusses the results and draws on available case studies to identify key elements in moving fisheries toward a more economically rational base without sacrificing fundamental social objectives in pursuit of economic efficiency.

Four appendixes provide supplementary information.

The crisis in marine fisheries has been well documented in biological terms. This study focuses on the economic health of the worlds fisheries as a complement to the numerous reviews of the ecological state of the global marine fisheries. Globally, the proportion of fully exploited, and either overexploited, depleted, or recovering fish stocks has continued to increase from just above 50 percent of all assessed fish stocks in the mid-1970s to about 75 percent in 2005 ().

Box 1.1 Stagnating Global Marine Catch

The box figure indicates that the reported global marine catch has stagnated at a level of 8085 million tons since 1990. This stagnation hides several underlying trends in the composition of the catch as described below.

One-half of the marine capture fish stocks monitored by the FAO are designated as fully exploited, producing at or close to their maximum sustainable yield. Another 25 percent of the marine fish stocks are either overexploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion and are yielding less than their maximum sustainable yield (). The remaining 25 percent of the marine capture fish stocks are underexploited or moderately exploited, and although this implies that more could be produced, many of these underexploited stocks are low-value species or species for which harvesting may be uneconomical. Global production of seafood from wild stocks is at or close to its long-run biological maximum.

Box Figure Reported Global Marine Catch, 19502006

Source: FAO FishStat Plus.