Turtle Economic Value: The non-use value of marine turtles in the Asia-Pacific region

Marine turtle species in the Asia-Pacific region face loss of habitat, population decline and serious risk of extinction. Understanding the associated loss in human welfare can motivate conservation finance, policy reforms and other actions to protect and restore marine turtle populations. This paper estimates non-use values for marine turtles in the Asia-Pacific region using a large-sample (n = 7765) global household survey. The survey focused on six countries in the region (China, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam) but received responses from over 80 countries in total. A discrete choice experiment was used to elicit willingness-to-pay (WTP) for marine turtles, defined in terms of population trends (increasing, stable or declining) and species diversity (avoided extinctions). We find that a high proportion of households (82%) expressed a positive WTP for turtle conservation, and that the donation amounts are substantial. The median WTP for ensuring stable marine turtle populations, adjusted for demographic differences between the survey sample and the general population, is estimated at US $79 per household per year. A scenario analysis is used to estimate the economic welfare changes that would result from policy inaction (in which turtle populations continue to decline and two species become extinct) versus strong policy action (resulting in increasing turtle populations and no extinctions). The welfare loss that results from not acting is estimated to be US$40 billion per year, whereas the potential welfare gain from taking policy action to conserve, manage and protect marine turtles is estimated at US $55 billion per year. These results present a strong economic justification for governments across the region to align their environmental policies and budgets with Asia-Pacific peoples' stated WTP for turtle conservation

Diminishing returns on labour in the global marine food system

Technological advances over the past century have greatly reduced the proportion of human labour required to produce the world’s food. On land, these advances have continually increased yields, feeding a growing human population even as the number of farmers has fallen. It has long been recognized that technological advances do not necessarily increase fishery yields in the same way; since the natural productivity of wild fish stocks puts a strong limit on capture fisheries, high labour inputs can lead to overfishing. However, the global evolution of labour in marine fisheries has not been assessed, leaving the overall interactions among technology, fishers and catches unknown. Here we reconstruct the global number of marine fishers from 1950 to 2015 and show that the total number of fishers grew with no sign of reversal despite mechanization, as large increases in lower- and middle-income countries overwhelmed an ~60% decrease in higher-income countries. As a result, the wild fish catch per fisher has declined since the 1990s despite major technological advances—a stark contrast to the 70% increase of the production per farmer over the same period. Our results show that, globally averaged, fisheries displayed diminishing—or even negative—returns on labour over 1950–2015, which has been detrimental for food production efficiency, marine ecosystems and fishing communities.acceptedVersio

The role of human rights in implementing socially responsible seafood

Sustainability standards for seafood mainly address environmental performance criteria and are less concerned with the welfare of fisheries workers who produce the seafood. Yet human rights violations such as slavery and human trafficking are widespread in fisheries around the world, and underscore the need for certification bodies and other seafood supply chain actors to improve social performance, in addition to addressing environmental challenges. Calls for socially responsible seafood have referenced human rights law and policy frameworks to shape the guiding principles of socially responsible seafood and to provide the legal machinery to implement these aspirations, but practical guidance on how to achieve this is lacking. To provide clarity on this challenge, we reviewed the literature concerning human rights in the seafood supply chain, and prepared an analysis of opportunities and challenges to implement socially responsible seafood through relevant human rights, legal and policy instruments. We observe that human rights laws are generally framed in favour of addressing violations of civil and political rights, but there remains considerable scope for applying economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights in this context. Other challenges include weakly defined ESC rights infringements, a lack of straightforward mechanisms to enforce human rights entitlements, and practical difficulties such as resources to support and secure rights. On the positive side, governments can draw on international instruments to inspire national policies and legislation to eliminate illegalities from the seafood supply chain. However, for socially responsible seafood principles to translate into tangible actions, these objectives must be rooted in clear legal obligations and be supported by sufficient national capacity and political will

SUPPORTED AND SUPPORTERS : THE QUADRIPLEGIC ARTISTS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Bachelor'sBACHELOR OF SOCIAL SCIENCES (HONOURS

A fuzzy logic approach to spatial management of small-scale fisheries

Fishers are an integral part of the marine ecosystem; where and how fishers allocate their fishing effort can directly affect biological outcomes. Nonetheless, the human dimensions of fisheries are often not well understood, even though the ability to anticipate fishers’ response to spatial regulations is a key aspect of successful management. My thesis addresses this challenge by developing a marine spatial management tool that balances both human and conservation variables. I conduct an empirical investigation of small-scale fishers’ spatial use patterns with the aim of understanding how fishers’ preferences and perceptions of the marine environment affect their selection of fishing locations. I find that fishers tend to fish within preferred resource spaces that are bounded by the extent of their mental maps, and that are always considered to be safe. I integrate fishers’ preferences in a fuzzy logic expert system that I develop for zoning marine spaces in data poor conditions. This system, the protected area suitability index (PASI), assesses the suitability of a site for being protected from fishing by balancing fishers’ preference for the site with the site’s conservation value. Sites that are considered to be highly suitable for protection are those that have low fisher preference and high conservation value. The PASI estimates site suitability scores that range from 0 to 10, where 10 indicates that a site is very suitable for protection. I applied the PASI in a case study of a proposed marine protected area in Sabah, Malaysia. At least 58% and up to 75% of the time, the PASI’s assessment of site suitability matched a zoning plan for no take areas that was designed through a collaborative community process. This demonstrates that the PASI is appropriate for conducting rapid site prioritisation in data poor regions of the world, and can be used as an alternative to data, time, and financially demanding spatial planning methods.Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forGraduat

A framework for sustainable tourism in Pulau Banggi, Sabah : integrating biophysical and socio-economic considerations

Ecotourism is often viewed as a sustainable form of tourism, but has the potential to impart negative environmental and social impacts if not well managed. When planning tourism, ex ante assessments can provide a contextual understanding of the ecological, economic, and socio-cultural forces that shape the prospects for sustainable tourism development. Underlying conditions can suggest 'limits' to acceptable change levels incurred by tourism development, which respect socio-cultural expectations and biophysical realities. Pulau Banggi is a relatively remote island on the brink of tourism development in the Malaysian state of Sabah. I conduct an ex ante biophysical study that evaluates how existing conditions of the island's marine biodiversity, seasonality, and infrastructure might influence options for sustainable tourism development. Through interviews, I also assess local residents' perceptions and trade-off preferences towards environmental and socio-economic change associated with tourism growth. I find that human expectations of economic benefits might demand tourism development on a scale not compatible with existing biophysical capacity. Persistent use of destructive fishing techniques, uncertainty over groundwater capacity, and inadequate waste infrastructure are major ecological constraints to growth. I conclude that prospects for sustainable tourism in Pulau Banggi can be enhanced through small scale development operating under a community based approach, and institutionalised within a Marine Protected Area framework.Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forGraduat

Fisheries Centre research reports, Vol. 31, no. 2

This technical report estimates the catch loss arising from overfished fish stocks and the socio-economic impacts associated with this catch loss. In this analysis, catch loss is defined as the difference between the maximum sustainable yield of a fish stock and its catch in the most recent year. We focus on 482 fish stocks identified as ‘overfished’ in the Global Fishing Index, a global assessment of the sustainability of over 1,400 fish stocks conducted by the Minderoo Foundation. For these overfished stocks, we estimate (1) the potential catch loss (in tonnes) from overfished fish stocks; (2) the landed value (in USD) of catch loss; and (3) the number of jobs associated with marine fisheries catch loss worldwide. Our results indicate that the annual estimated catch loss for 482 overfished fish stocks amounted to 15 million tonnes worldwide. This catch loss results in huge societal cost, translating to around US$39 billion in potential lost landed value annually, and an estimated 668,479 associated full time equivalent jobs. If all the overfished fish stocks were fished at MSY, all regions worldwide could potentially gain fishing jobs, with highest potential gains in Latin America and the Caribbean (24% above current jobs). Thus, our analysis emphasises the urgent need to immediately rebuild overfished fish stocks in order to recoup the current economic and social benefits that are forgone with catch loss.Science, Faculty ofOceans and Fisheries, Institute for theUnreviewedFacultyResearche

Who Brings in the Fish? The Relative Contribution of Small-Scale and Industrial Fisheries to Food Security in Southeast Asia

Amidst overexploited fisheries and further climate related declines projected in tropical fisheries, marine dependent small-scale fishers in Southeast Asia face an uncertain future. Yet, small-scale fishers are seldom explicitly considered in regional fisheries management and their contribution to national fish supply tends to be greatly under-estimated compared to industrial fisheries. Lack of knowledge about the small-scale sector jeopardizes informed decision-making for sustainable ecosystem based fisheries planning and social development. We fill this knowledge gap by applying reconstructed marine fish catch statistics from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam—countries of the Gulf of Thailand—from 1950 to 2013 to assess the relative contribution of small-scale and industrial fisheries to national food security. Reconstructed catches quantify reported and unreported fish catch from industrial, small-scale, and recreational fishing. We then conduct a comparative analysis of the degree to which the industrial and small-scale sectors support food security, by converting total catch to the portion that is kept for human consumption and that which is diverted to fishmeal for animal feed or other purposes. Total reconstructed marine fish catch from the four Southeast Asian countries totalled 282 million t from 1950 to 2013, with small-scale sector catches being underestimated by an average of around two times. When the amount of fish that is diverted to fishmeal is omitted, small-scale fishers contribute more food fish for humans than do industrial fisheries for much of the period until 2000. These results encourage regional fisheries management to be cognisant of small-scale fisheries as a pillar of socio-economic well-being for coastal communities