Trade and Management: Exclusive Economic Zones and the Changing Japanese Surimi Market

The United States' increasing competitive advantage in international seafood trade in Alaska walleye pollock. Theragra chalcogramma, has contributed to higher prices for surimi-based goods and structural changes in seafood production and trade in Japan. The objectives of this analytical investigation include: 1) Evaluation of the role reversal of Japan and the United States in international seafood trade and 2) quantification of the impact of rising prices of frozen surimi on household consumption of surimi-based foods in Japan. This study documents Japan's regression from "seafood self-sufficiency" to increasing dependence on imported products and raw materials. In particular, Japan's growing dependence on American fishermen and seafood producers is described. Surimi production by the United States, and its emerging dominance over Japanese sources of supply, are especially significant. Results of the analysis suggest that Japanese consumer demand for surimi-based food stuffs correlates directly with "competitive" food prices, e.g., pork, chicken, and beef, and inversely with personal income. Also revealed is how rising household income and relative price shifts among competing animal protein sources in the Japanese diet have contributed to declining household consumption of surimi-based foods, specifically, and a shift away from seafoods in favor of beef, in general. The linkages between, for example. Japanese domestic seafood production and consumption, international trade in marine products, and resource management decisions in the U.S. EEZ present a picture of a changing global marketplace. Increasingly, actions in one arena will have perhaps profound implications in the others

Trade Restrictions and Trade Reversal: Lessons from the U.S.-Canada Herring Dispute

This paper analyzes international trade in value added products when free trade and perfect competition in the market for an intermediate product, such as raw fish, are the exception rather than the rule. Current evidence from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) regarding disputes between countries, such as the V.S.-Canada dispute over trade in raw herring, suggests that bilateral trade in raw fish among major exporters of seafood products may not be completely free of structural and political barriers. The study presents models showing that restrictions on the exportation of raw fish from an exporting country can make possible monopsony behavior by fish processors in a rival exporting country and they outline the market behavior of the players under such circumstances. The analysis illustrates how, under such conditions, economic forces contribute to the creation of trade disputes. It further demonstrates how expansion of the demand for final product may, through trade reversal pressures, dilute the market power of the processor monopsony and make trade restriction policies irrelevant.roe herring, trade reversal, trade restrictions, monopsony, trade dispute, GATT, market imperfection, free trade, fishery management, comparative advantage reversal, Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade,

Endangered, Threatened, and Protected Species: Challenges of Managing Living Marine Resources in an Internally Conflicted Regulatory Environment and the Opportunities They Present

Natural resource management is a challenging undertaking in the best of circumstances. However, managing living marine resources is frequently confounded by the vast, alien, and oft-times hostile physical environment within which the organisms reside. The subtleties and complexity of the marine life-web, which in important respects have come to include the traditional relationships, forged over millennia, of individual human populations, all contribute to the intricate biological, political, economic, and social undercurrents that define and drive the management decision-making process. The remarks and observations offered here pertain primarily to the U.S. Federal resource management process, as it bears on the exploitation and conservation of the fish, shellfish, mammals, birds, and other marine organisms of the U.S. Extended Economic Zone (EEZ). Prior to the establishment of the U.S. extended management zone, the principal role of the “Feds” in marine fisheries management was connected with bilateral and multilateral international agreements on “high-seas” access to (and conservation of) these open access or common-property resources. The predecessor agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, by-in-large, represented the U.S. “marine fisheries management” interests on the world’s oceans

U.S. Fisheries Management and Foreign Trade Linkages: Policy Implications for Groundfish Fisheries in the North Pacific EEZ

The groundfish resources of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off Alaska, dominated by Alaska or walleye pollock, Theragra chalcogramma, Pacific cod, Gadus macrocephalus, and flatfishes, Pleuronectidae, can sustain annual commercial harvests well in excess of 2 million metric tons (t). As recently as 1979, foreign fisheries took 99 percent of the annual harvest supported by these resources. This has changed dramatically during the 1980's. The foreign fisheries have received rapidly decreasing allocations, first as joint venture fisheries expanded and, more recently, as the domestic fisheries have grown. Joint venture fisheries are fisheries in which domestic fishing vessels deliver their catch directly to foreign processing vessels in the EEZ. By 1986, the joint venture and domestic fisheries accounted for 66 percent and 8 percent, respectively, of the annual harvest. The preliminary corresponding figures for 1987 are 78 and 18 percent

Research in Global Groundfish Markets: An Exercise in International Cooperation

Over roughly the last decade, most of the fishery resources of the continental shelf and nearshore areas of the world's oceans have come under the control of coastal nations. One consequence of this extension of fisheries jurisdiction (EFJ) by any individual state has been the expansion of its production possibilities. That is, with strengthened property rights in the ocean resources off its shores, a coastal nation experiences increased opportunities to produce goods and services from its newly enlarged pool of resources. Such a nation, then, would appear to be a potential gainer from EFJ

Water Vapor Vertical Profiles on Mars in Dust Storms Observed by TGO/NOMAD

It has been suggested that dust storms efficiently transport water vapor from the near‐surface to the middle atmosphere on Mars. Knowledge of the water vapor vertical profile during dust storms is important to understand water escape. During Martian Year 34, two dust storms occurred on Mars: a global dust storm (June to mid‐September 2018) and a regional storm (January 2019). Here we present water vapor vertical profiles in the periods of the two dust storms (Ls = 162–260° and Ls = 298–345°) from the solar occultation measurements by Nadir and Occultation for Mars Discovery (NOMAD) onboard ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). We show a significant increase of water vapor abundance in the middle atmosphere (40–100 km) during the global dust storm. The water enhancement rapidly occurs following the onset of the storm (Ls~190°) and has a peak at the most active period (Ls~200°). Water vapor reaches very high altitudes (up to 100 km) with a volume mixing ratio of ~50 ppm. The water vapor abundance in the middle atmosphere shows high values consistently at 60°S‐60°N at the growth phase of the dust storm (Ls = 195°–220°), and peaks at latitudes greater than 60°S at the decay phase (Ls = 220°–260°). This is explained by the seasonal change of meridional circulation: from equinoctial Hadley circulation (two cells) to the solstitial one (a single pole‐to‐pole cell). We also find a conspicuous increase of water vapor density in the middle atmosphere at the period of the regional dust storm (Ls = 322–327°), in particular at latitudes greater than 60°S

No detection of methane on Mars from early ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter observations

The detection of methane on Mars has been interpreted as indicating that geochemical or biotic activities could persist on Mars today. A number of different measurements of methane show evidence of transient, locally elevated methane concentrations and seasonal variations in background methane concentrations. These measurements, however, are difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the chemistry and physics of the Martian atmosphere, which-given methane's lifetime of several centuries-predicts an even, well mixed distribution of methane. Here we report highly sensitive measurements of the atmosphere of Mars in an attempt to detect methane, using the ACS and NOMAD instruments onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter from April to August 2018. We did not detect any methane over a range of latitudes in both hemispheres, obtaining an upper limit for methane of about 0.05 parts per billion by volume, which is 10 to 100 times lower than previously reported positive detections. We suggest that reconciliation between the present findings and the background methane concentrations found in the Gale crater would require an unknown process that can rapidly remove or sequester methane from the lower atmosphere before it spreads globally

The Role of Economics in Bycatch Valuation

The fishing gear used in most fisheries, including the groundfish fisheries off Alaska, is not completely selective. That is, it results in catch of target species as well as other species that are often not intended to be taken. The latter catch is referred to as bycatch because it is a byproduct of the effort to take the target species. From an economic perspective, the fisheries management objective is often to minimize the cost of bycatch where that cost consists of what will be referred to as the impact, control, and management costs. The impact cost is the cost resulting from restrictions imposed on those who harvest, process, market, or consume the species taken as bycatch. The control cost is the cost borne by a fishery when it takes actions to control its bycatch. Management cost is the cost of management agencies of implementing and enforcing a management measure to control bycatch. Two methodological approaches used to quantitatively assess the economic impacts of a management program designed to minimize these costs are presented. These are benefit-cost analysis, which includes, as a prerequisite, price response modeling, and input-output analysis. The empirical application of benefit-cost analysis to the issue of halibut bycatch in groundfish fisheries off the coast of Alaska is discussed, and data needs and limitation are identified.Ye

The nature and evolution of cooperative fishing arrangements in extended jurisdiction zones

Following the global extension of marine fishery jurisdiction, cooperative fishing arrangements have emerged between coastal nations and distant water fleets. Economic analysis of these arrangements to date has emphasized their bilateral nature and the associated difficulties of influencing and monitoring behavior, including incentive gaps resulting from differing perceptions of the future. When it is recognized that there are many buyers and sellers of "access", and that the resources themselves are heterogeneous, the magnitude of such gaps diminishes. We develop a theoretical model and provide empirical evidence supporting the position that a competitive "international market for access" is evolving.EEZ joint-ventures property rights