Date published: 2007/12/07
The BBC says:
Fishermen would make even more money than previously thought if they let depleted stocks rebuild, according to research from Australia and the US.
When fish are more plentiful it becomes easier and cheaper to catch them.
Now researchers have shown how bigger stocks would bring bigger profits for those in the industry.
...
"This is what some people may have suspected before, but we're the first to actually show the result," said research leader Quentin Grafton from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra."As soon as you start saying 'we're going to reduce the harvest', fishermen say 'you're going to make us worse off'; but we're saying 'if you reduce the harvest now, you'll actually be better off'."
Traditional fisheries management centres around a concept known as Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) - the highest catches that can be taken year after year without running stocks down.
Many fisheries authorities that claim to aim for MSY are failing to achieve their target. The UN calculates that 75% of commercial fisheries globally are exploited either up to or beyond their sustainable limits.
While MSY management might yield the biggest catches, Professor Grafton's team calculated that fishermen would earn more if they kept stocks at a higher level, which they have named Maximum Economic Yield (MEY).
...
With advice from scientists at ANU, the Australian federal government is to introduce MEY-based management for 26 species from the beginning of 2008, Professor Grafton said.
...
Martin Pastoors, chair of the Advisory Committee on Fishery Management within the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices), which provides the EU's scientific advice on fisheries, commented: "The simple logic of lower costs at bigger stock size seems plausible, and therefore higher profits at MEY above MSY.
Well it's extremely plausible that there is an MEY above the MSY. The question is whether the models that anybody uses are capable of calculating either of these quantities very well, and whether the difference between the two is small relative to the error in the calculations. And how many fishermen will believe any calculations of scientists, who pretty much always put the interest of the fish above the interest of the fishermen. Grafton says "fishermen say 'you're going to make us worse off'; but we're saying 'if you reduce the harvest now, you'll actually be better off'". Well, he fails to mention the crucial phrase "in the future", and of course that is a big qualification. There is no point being rich tomorrow if you are going to starve today. Perhaps the scientists will be willing to have their grant cut in half so that the remainder can be used to subsidise fishermen while the latter wait for this alleged future golden period.
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