Raising the “Sunken Billions”: Financing the transition to sustainable fisheries
Highlights
► Financially difficult transition periods often prevent fisheries from achieving sustainability. ► Market based incentives alone are unlikely to affect recovery at the ecosystem scale necessary. ► A case is proposed for the creation of a “Financial Institution for the Recovery of Marine Ecosystems”. ► The purpose is to invest in conservation of the biodiversity and habitats on which fisheries depend. ► Redirected government subsidies and private financing could create incentives for change.
Introduction
The economic and social importance of healthy, functioning marine ecosystems are well understood [1], yet the world’s oceans have suffered many decades of excessive fishing pressure that has eroded the natural capital base on which an increasing demand for seafood is dependent [2], [3], [4]. While positive fisheries management changes are occurring in some large marine ecosystems (e.g., Gulf of Alaska, New Zealand Shelf), these are the exception rather than the rule. The ocean faces unprecedented levels of large-scale, multiple stresses from warming and acidifying seas as a result of climate change and pollution [5], but fisheries impacts have long been the single most important contributing factor in the decline of marine biodiversity.
Recognition of these serious risks to global oceans led to international commitments made in 1992 (United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development) and 2002 (World Summit on Sustainable Development) to improve management of marine resources. Despite this, in 2010 the number of fisheries reported to be ‘fully exploited’ or ‘over exploited, depleted, recovering from depletion’ rose to 85%. Around the same period (2008), a new record in seafood demand was recorded at 17 kg live weight equivalent of fish per person [6]. With human population projections being as much as 10.6 billion by 2050 [7], seafood demand has a clear upward trajectory.
The failure to adequately invest in recovery and sustainable use of fisheries not only includes the well-publicized environmental and social consequences, but lost economic benefits too. The World Bank and FAO estimated that losses due to inefficient fisheries is around $50 billion annually with the cumulative loss over the past three decades around $2 trillion [8]. These numbers represent recoverable losses to one of the most widely traded food commodities with exports worth more than $85 billion in 2008 [9] and related economic activity generated in the range of $500 billion per year [7].
Capture fisheries are a unique category of the food industry as the energy inputs for producing fish are wholly subsidized by nature. It thus makes good economic sense to minimize capture costs and to harvest sustainably [10], providing the potential for fish stocks to feed the world indefinately. To meet this need, long-term investment to drive the adoption of precautionary, adaptive and resilience-building fisheries management measures is urgently required. The key issue is how the potential benefits can be realized, given the financially difficult transition period that currently inhibits fisheries reform [11]. Here, this fundamental challenge is addressed by proposing an institutional arrangement that is designed to finance fisheries management reform and biodiversity conservation, when combined with good governance and market-based incentives.
Section snippets
Beyond the market place
Market demand for certified sustainable seafood can be a powerful agent for change and is becoming increasingly prevalent in the marketplace. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), for example, currently has “just under 10,000 individual product lines in a global market for labelled certified seafood now worth over $2.5 billion annually” [12]. Improvements in fishing practices resulting from conditions imposed on certified fisheries can certainly help mitigate fisheries impacts on the broader
Enabling conditions
The problem of transitional costs is well recognized. Numerous injections of investment capital, typically sourced from government or foundation grants with little or no expected financial return, have financed schemes to safeguard marine biodiversity. Increasingly, social finance in both non-profit and for-profit social and environmental enterprises, including blended investments from a range of sources, has provided at least a nominal financial return. However, while many fishery
Public/private funding pathways
One of the most significant and ready sources of investment capital could be that acquired by redirecting harmful fisheries subsidies. A recent study by Sumaila et al. [19] estimated that global fisheries subsidies for 2003 were between $25 and $29 billion, of which $16 billion was used to enhance capacity – one of the principal drivers of over-fishing. Clearly government subsidies are effectively funding the over-exploitation of marine resources by an industry that would otherwise be
Conclusion
The FIRME provides an approach that could derive momentum from a growing consensus on solutions for our oceans e.g., [23] and the need for political commitments on the ‘green economy’ theme (e.g., United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development UNCSD/Rio +20). In 2010 at Nagoya, the Conference of the Parties (COP10) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) identified the need for innovative financing to underpin sustainability investments in nature. Meeting that challenge with
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the contributions of many individuals who helped shape our ideas during numerous consultations hosted by WWF. In addition, we are greatly indebted to staff at the Prince’s Charities’ International Sustainability Unit (Charlotte Cawthorne, Jack Gibbs, John Goodlad) and to the participants of ISU hosted workshops. Thanks also to: Tim Bostock (The World Bank); Ian Glew (Memorial University of Newfoundland); Jeffrey Hutchings (Dalhousie University); Astrid Scholz (Ecotrust);
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