Challenging the ‘right to fish’: closing the high seas

to fishing

U. Rashid SumailaFisheries Economics Research Unit, Fisheries

Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada

(r.sumaila@fisheries.ubc.ca)

Talk is based on Sumaila et al. (in press) to be published on Feb 13 by

Nature Scientific Reports

Fishing takes place within territorial waters, Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and in the high seas.

Baseline

200 nm

Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) High Seas

Territorial Waters

Contiguous Zone

12 nm 24 nm

Continental Shelf

The spatial evolution of fishing

High seasExclusive economic zones

High seas versus Exclusive Economic Zones

• Inadequate management (Cullis-Suzuki & Pauly, 2010);

• Overfishing and population decline (e.g., Juan-Jordá et al., 2011);

• Bycatch of threatened or vulnerable species (e.g., Anderson et al., 2011);

• Habitat destruction (Ramirez-Llodra et al., 2010).

Threats to the high seas

Adult biomass trajectories of tunas and their relatives within oceans (A–D), taxonomic and ecological groups (E–H and L), and life histories (I–L).

Threats to the high seas

E.g., declining tuna populations (Juan-Jordá et al., 2011)

• Deep sea fishes often have characteristics that make them vulnerable to overfishing (Norse et al., 2012);

• Much of the deep ocean is unexplored and poorly understood (Ramirez-Llodra et al., 2010);

• The impacts of deep-sea fishing activities are largely unknown (Roberts, 2002);

• Many high seas fisheries would not be viable without government subsidies (Sumaila et al., 2007).

Additional considerations

• Ocean predators forage for prey in both EEZs and in the high seas (Block et al., 2011).

Additional considerations

The depletion of high-seas stocks can influence the availability of fish to coastal fleets.

Results from Rogers, Sumaila et al. (GOC Rep.)

Figure: Average annual portions of taxa taken from the high seas only, from both the high seas and Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), and from EEZs only based on global catch statistics 2000-2010. a, Number of taxa (total = 1,406); b, Catch quantities (thousand t) (total = 80,028); and c, Landed values (million US$) (total = 108,585).

~42% of the taxa can be considered ‘straddling’, while only ~1.5% are exclusively high seas.

Results from Rogers, Sumaila et al. (GOC Rep.)

The 10 leading high-seas fishing nations together land 62% of the high-seas catch and 71% of the landed values, respectively:

Raises distributional concerns …

Recent proposals to close the high seas

Closing the high seas to fishing has recently been proposed within the literature…

… and is currently an issue of debate in various international fora.

Questions addressed

• What percentage increase in the catch of straddling taxa within EEZs would make closing the high seas catch-neutral?

• How does this compared with a range of potential increases in the catches predicted by White & Costello (2014)?

• Which countries, political groupings and continents stand to gain or lose in terms of catch and landed values with a closure of the high seas?

• What are the distributions of landed values under the status quo versus under a high seas closure?

Methods• Set up catch and values for all EEZs and the high seas

spatially;• Run various scenarios of increasing total catch of

straddling taxa within EEZs with the closure of the high seas;

• Determine the percentage increase in the catch of straddling taxa that would make closing the high seas catch-neutral;

• Compare the percentage above with the range of 10 to 70% increase in catch reported in White and Costello (2014).

Methods• Given high seas closure we analyze potential changes

in catch and value to: – the world, i.e., globally;– different continents; – groups of countries (e.g., the EU);– different maritime countries.

• Assess the distribution of catch values under the status quo and with those when the high seas is closed by calculating the Gini coefficient.

• Catch-neutrality is achieved if catch of straddling taxa within EEZs increases on average by 18%;

• This percentage is below the modelled rate of increase of 42% reported in White & Costello (2013); and at the low end of the predicted min. and max. range of 10 to 70% explored in this paper.

Results: Net effects on catch of closing the H.S.

• With an 18% increase in the catches of straddling taxa, 120 maritime countries experience net gains in the landed values of their fisheries catches and 65 experience net losses.

Results: With catch-neutrality

• The Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, would decrease from 0.66 to 0.33. Thus, inequality in the distribution of fisheries benefits among the world’s maritime countries could be reduced by 50%.

Results: Distribution of LV values among nations

• Global catch and landed values increase by 11 million t and US$13 billion (i.e., 16% and 15% higher, respectively) per year;

• All continents gain in catch and landed values;• The USA, China and Japan would gain the most; • EU Member States, the G8 countries and the Least

Developed Countries all fare better than all countries considered together under every scenario examined;

• The top 20 countries that catch the most by value in the high seas will lose as a group,

• Taiwan and South Korea would lose the most; Spain also loses.

Results: Increase of 42% as predicted by W &C

• Our study suggests that it would be:– environmentally and economically sensible to turn the

high seas into a fish bank for the world by closing it;– more equitable to close the high seas to fishing, with

inequity dropping by 50%.

• Our findings also suggest that closing the high seas is unlikely to lead to risks to food security (through reduction in catches), employment, revenues, and profits – it is more likely that it would enhance it.

Discussion and Conclusion

Acknowledgements: Thanks for your Attention

• Global Ocean Commission, Somerville College, Oxford University;

• OceanCanada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

• The Pew Charitable Trusts whose support of the Sea Around Us and Global Ocean Economics projects at the University of British Columbia made the current analysis possible.