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Ben Hasan, Abdulrahman

University of British Columbia

Overexploitation and resource rent dissipation are some of the fundamental issues in fisheries management. The first undermines food security while the second implies a minimal economic return to the owning society. Sustainable fisheries are predominantly attained in conjunction with high management intensity, which keeps exploitation rates in check. Yet controlling exploitation becomes a daunting task under many complex fisheries contexts. Further, although profitability of fishing industry has improved after introducing quota-based systems, it is perceived that society is not receiving a fair share of the resource rent. In this dissertation, I focus on the Arabian Gulf region as a microcosm to examine various complex fisheries problems and underline, globally, the society’s compensation from the fishing industry. I begin by discussing situations where open access conditions are irreversible due to inherently poor management institutions or high dependency on fishing for livelihood. I show that well-designed size restriction—an easily implementable approach—can help avert overexploitation, rebuild depleted fish stocks and enhance yields without controlling exploitation rates. Next, I examine internationally shared fish stocks, whose sustainability requires managing exploitation rates at the international level rather than merely locally. I develop an age-structured model to evaluate bioeconomic trade-offs under alternative fishing scenarios. Harvesting a shared fish stock under cooperation or local but sustainable management provides much higher bioeconomic gains than competition. I then discuss the impacts of escalated market demand for dried swim bladder on fish, people and management in source countries. I highlight that while management interventions are required, the extremely high value of swim bladder would complicate regulatory efforts by stimulating black-market systems. Finally, I examine whether resource rent charges are imposed on catch share fisheries, and systematically compare that with forestry, oil, gas, and mining in 18 countries. I show that fishing is the only industry that consistently lacks resource rent charges, implying a forgoing stream of income in most countries. My dissertation contributes toward alleviating overfishing when exploitation rates are difficult to manage and underscores the need for national policies to consider the enhanced profitability of the fishing industry under catch share systems.

Text

2021-07-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/79073

Oceans and Fisheries

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/