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. 2012;7(7):e40542.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040542. Epub 2012 Jul 13.

Benefits of rebuilding global marine fisheries outweigh costs

Ussif Rashid Sumaila  1 , William Cheung, Andrew Dyck, Kamal Gueye, Ling Huang, Vicky Lam, Daniel Pauly, Thara Srinivasan, Wilf Swartz, Reginald Watson, Dirk Zeller
Affiliations

Benefits of rebuilding global marine fisheries outweigh costs

Ussif Rashid Sumaila et al. PLoS One. 2012.

Abstract

Global marine fisheries are currently underperforming, largely due to overfishing. An analysis of global databases finds that resource rent net of subsidies from rebuilt world fisheries could increase from the current negative US$13 billion to positive US$54 billion per year, resulting in a net gain of US$600 to US$1,400 billion in present value over fifty years after rebuilding. To realize this gain, governments need to implement a rebuilding program at a cost of about US$203 (US$130-US$292) billion in present value. We estimate that it would take just 12 years after rebuilding begins for the benefits to surpass the cost. Even without accounting for the potential boost to recreational fisheries, and ignoring ancillary and non-market values that would likely increase, the potential benefits of rebuilding global fisheries far outweigh the costs.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Summary of resource rent (adjusted for subsidies) from current fisheries.
We see that several countries are in red once the full cost of fishing, including harmful subsidies are taken into account.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Summary of resource rent (adjusted for subsidies) from rebuilt fisheries (rent in all maritime countries increase after rebuilding).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Transition time path of key rebuilding global fisheries variables.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Histograms of pre-tax profit share of total sales for a sample of 1000 global fishing companies.
Figure taken from .
Figure 5
Figure 5. The Schaeffer surplus-production model, based on Gordon .
Figure 6
Figure 6. Trade-offs between reductions in cost of fishing effort and total fishing effort (in terms of number of fishers) reduced as the weight of effort cuts on large-scale fishing varies.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Lost catch potential due to overfishing for the six FAO regions of the world (top) and worldwide (bottom).
Figure drawn using results reported in Srinivasan et al. .
Figure 8
Figure 8. Correlation between reported subsidies and landed-value .
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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