Hi all,
I took the opportunity to ask a colleague who is a fisheries economist
whether such data exists. He responded that the costs of monitoring IUU
fishing are extremely contentious given how much area would need to be
accounted for and the limited enforcement infrastructure, especially in
developing countries. In short, he could not name a paper that estimates
such costs credibly.
Best,
Erika
Peter Haas wrote:
I have a related question, that arose in my lecture. How are fishery
quotas actually enforced? Who is measuring the fish catch? Are these
numbers at all accurate?
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Charles Chester <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Wednesday, March 17, 2010 3:52 PM
*Subject:* [gep-ed] Costs of monitoring ocean fisheries
Hi everyone,
Please excuse the potential naïveté of this question, but I’m trying
to find out if anyone’s estimated the total costs of what it would
take to effectively monitor global fisheries. Not looking for
enforcement estimates, but just what it would cost (1) to improve
current extraction estimates and (2) to get a good handle on the
actual extent of IUU (illegal, unregulated & underreported)
fisheries. In essence, what would it cost to make a fisheries
biologist happy? (Don’t think about that question for too long....)
I blandly told my class today that if we can analogize IUU to a
“Darth Vader” form of “monitoring,” and if we accept the estimated
monetary value of IUU of ~10b (a very sketchy figure), then we might
be able to use the costs of IUU (nets, crew, boat maintenance, wifi
access, lattes, etc.) as a proxy measure for what it would cost to
monitor global fisheries (and assuming a profit, those costs have to
be <~$10b). Though I immediately turned to another subject in the
hopes that nobody wrote that spurious idea down in their notes, I am
still wondering if anyone’s made the estimates of the actual costs
of effective global monitoring. My current guess is that it would
far exceed the value of IUU, but it’s only a guess (kind of depends
on the extent of IUU—in a perverse sort of way, one would hope that
it would far exceed the value of IUU). Please send ideas to me, I’ll
collate, and then send back out to the list.
Thanks,
-Charlie
________________
Charles C. Chester
9 Lowell Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
617.304.9373
http://www.Y2Y.net
http://www.brandeis.edu/environmentalstudies
http://www.ConservationClimateChangeClearinghouse.net
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