OVERCAPACITY, OVERFISHING AND SUBSIDIES: HOW DO THEY RELATE TO SMALL SCALE FISHERIES - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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OVERCAPACITY, OVERFISHING AND SUBSIDIES: HOW DO THEY RELATE TO SMALL SCALE FISHERIES

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How small or big should a fishing vessel and gear be to claim the 'small-scale' status? ... Then consider the amorphous third group as the 'other fishing units' ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: OVERCAPACITY, OVERFISHING AND SUBSIDIES: HOW DO THEY RELATE TO SMALL SCALE FISHERIES


1
OVERCAPACITY, OVERFISHING AND SUBSIDIESHOW DO
THEY RELATE TO SMALL SCALE FISHERIES?
  • John Kurien,
  • Centre for Development Studies,
  • Trivandrum-695 011, India
  • (kurien.john_at_gmail.com)
  • For Presentation at the
  • 8th Pacific Rim Fisheries Conference
  • Hanoi
  • 22-24 March 2006

2
INTRODUCTION
  • Overcapacity and overfishing the inseperable
    twins
  • The recent discovery that overfishing and
    overfishing are closely related to subsidies
  • Initially this relationship was restricted to
    industrial fishing, now extended to small-scale
    fishing fleets too

3
INTRODUCTION (CONTINUED)
  • My objectives
  • 1. To show that linking overcapacity and
    overfishing primarily to subsidies is faulty
  • 2. Make a detailed analysis of the much quoted
    FAO 1992 study to show that if indeed subsidies
    cause overcapacity and overfishing, then this is
    related primarily to large-scale industrial
    fishing.

4
OVERCAPACITY, OVERFISHING AND SUBSIDIES
  • Five factors that promote overcapacity and
    overfishing
  • 1. The expanding Market for fish
  • 2. The rapid Technological change in response to
    1
  • 3. The changing Institutional arrangements for
    access to the resource (from restricted to open
    access)
  • 4. The expansion of processing capacity in
    response to 1,2 and 3
  • 5. The subsidies in the system

5
SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES
  • Part of the development philosophy that led to
    the belief that small-scale fisheries would not
    survive and would be replaced eventually by
    industrial fisheries
  • Hence small-scale fisheries neglected and
    orphaned in most developing countries
  • However, this belief has been proved wrong and
    small-scale fisheries remain dynamic and vibrant
    despite the neglect
  • Small-scale fishery being rediscovered

6
SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES (CONTINUED)
  • Major problem of definition
  • What is a small-scale fishery? How small or big
    should a fishing vessel and gear be to claim the
    small-scale status?
  • In the WTO subsidies debate an attempt was made
    to define artisanal fisheries as a sub-set of
    small-scale fisheries

7
SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES (CONTINUED)
  • My approach to definition
  • First define two groups of fishing vessels which
    can be unambiguously defined
  • Then consider the amorphous third group as the
    other fishing units

8
SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES (CONTINUED)
  • At the top end we define
  • Large scale fishing units those fishing units
    that should be listed in the Lloyds Register.
  • At the bottom we define
  • Artisanal fishing units those fishing units that
    use non-automatic gear deployment or hauling
    devices.
  • At the middle we define
  • Other fishing units the remaining fishing units
    in the respective country.

9
SMALL-SCALE FISHERIES (CONTINUED)
  • The advantage of this approach is that
  • the criteria are simple and without ambiguity and
    they can be uniformly applied.
  • the administrative costs of assessment are
    greatly minimised and subject to very minimal
    adverse selection.
  • the approach does not negate the dissimilarities
    and diversity within a fishery or between
    countries.
  • Small-scale artisanal other units

10
(No Transcript)
11
OVERCAPACITY ANE OVERFISHING IN SMALL SCALE
FISHERIES? (CONTINUED)
  • For undecked fishing vessels (artisanal), the
    annual operating costs per vessel are about US
    3000 per year. Assuming that the undecked boats
    fished for 180 days in a year, this would imply a
    daily gross operating cost of US 17 only. It is
    hard to believe that the gross revenues per
    vessel would not be as much.
  • Similarly for the decked vessels the annual
    operating costs per vessel are about US 22,600
    and daily gross operating cost of US 140 only.
    Here too the possibility of a deficit in
    aggregate operations, though possible, is
    unlikely to be very significant.

12
OVERCAPACITY ANE OVERFISHING IN SMALL SCALE
FISHERIES? (CONTINUED)
  • Of the worlds over 3 million fishing vessels, a
    mere 1 percent of them were industrial vessels
    and they accounted for about 72 percent of the
    global capital replacement costs and 55 percent
    of the global annual operating costs
  • On the other hand, the over 2 million undecked
    fishing boats which are in the developing
    countries and comprise 65 percent of the world
    fishing fleet, account for a mere 0.65 percent of
    the capital replacement value and only 9 percent
    of the annual global operating costs

13
OVERCAPACITY ANE OVERFISHING IN SMALL SCALE
FISHERIES? (CONTINUED)
  • It is hard to believe that the gross revenues per
    vessel in both cases would not be as much. This
    highlights that there is unlikely to be a deficit
    in their aggregate operations.
  • Even if we assume that the world has an
    overcapacity of undecked and decked fishing
    boats, the argument that subsidies are the main
    cause is hard to accept.

14
CONCLUSIONS
  • From our above analysis it is abundantly clear
    that we have to look beyond the single factor of
    subsidies to understand the dynamics of fishing
    capacity.
  • Moreover, is should be very clear that if
    subsidies are a causative factor in overcapacity,
    it will be almost exclusively in the industrial
    fishing fleet that account for only 1 percent of
    the fishing units in the world.

15
CONCLUSIONS (CONTINUED)
  • Overcapacity and overfishing are real phenomenon
    in world fisheries today. We must take cognizance
    of it and also take all possible measures to
    bring it under control.
  • Our effort in this presentation was to highlight
    that the paths by which global fisheries reached
    this state of affairs are complex. The current
    cacophony highlighting subsidies as the main
    villain actively prevents us from making a
    causative analysis of the problem.
  • Moreover, it is unfair to treat all the fishing
    fleet of the world as being guilty of
    overcapacity and overfishing.

16
CONCLUSIONS (CONTINUED)
  • The small-scale fishing fleet (made up of
    undecked (artisanal) and decked fishing units),
    though they account for 98 percent of the worlds
    fishing fleet, they cannot be accused of large
    scale use of subsidies to build up overcapacity
    leading to overfishing.
  • This is not to suggest that overcapacity and
    overfishing are not problems in themselves for
    small-scale fishing. The point is that the cause
    for it may have to be sought in more complex
    factors relating to markets, technology and
    institutions and not just the largesse arising
    from subsidies.

17
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION
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