Seafood Trade, Fisheries Management and Human Livelihoods

Abstract

In 1976 global exports for fish and fisheries products was approximately $8 billion. In 2000, global exports exceeded$55 billion. The period between 1985 and 1995 witnessed the tripling of global fisheries exports. This represents more than half of total value of global fisheries production. Developing countries began to increase their share of this total during the 1990s and now account for more than half of global exports. In 2000 the net trade value (exports minus imports) for developing country seafood exports exceeded $18 billion. Taken at face value these statistics suggest that the monetary benefits of fisheries trade have increased in the wake of EEZ extension with developing countries benefiting the most. These statistics fail to reflect some important costs, however. Such costs include subsidies to the fishing industry and a variety of social and environmental externalities associated with changes in fishing activity. They also tell us little about how both costs and benefits resulting from fisheries trade our distributed among a variety of affected stakeholders within fisheries and the communities that depend upon them. In particular, the trends depicted above have been criticized for adverse impacts on small-scale fishing communities and their historical institutional arrangements. This paper will explore the interplay between seafood trade, fisheries management and human livelihoods. The paper will argue that economic structure of a given fisheries sector, the political organization of its industry, and the institutional arrangements that govern it all play important roles in determining the size and distribution of costs and benefits associated with the expansion of seafood trade