Does Climate Change Bolster the Case for Fishery Reform in Asia? Christopher Costello∗
Does Climate Change Bolster the Case for Fishery Reform in Asia? Christopher Costello∗ I examine the estimated economic, ecological, and food security effects of future fishery management reform in Asia. Without climate change, most Asian fisheries stand to gain substantially from reforms. Optimizing fishery management could increase catch by 24% and profit by 34% over business- as-usual management. These benefits arise from fishing some stocks more conservatively and others more aggressively. Although climate change is expected to reduce carrying capacity in 55% of Asian fisheries, I find that under climate change large benefits from fishery management reform are maintained, though these benefits are heterogeneous. The case for reform remains strong for both catch and profit, though these numbers are slightly lower than in the no-climate change case. These results suggest that, to maximize economic output and food security, Asian fisheries will benefit substantially from the transition to catch shares or other economically rational fishery management institutions, despite the looming effects of climate change. Keywords: Asia, climate change, fisheries, rights-based management JEL codes: Q22, Q28 I. Introduction Global fisheries have diverged sharply over recent decades. High governance, wealthy economies have largely adopted output controls or various forms of catch shares, which has helped fisheries in these economies overcome inefficiencies arising from overfishing (Worm et al. 2009) and capital stuffing (Homans and Wilen 1997), and allowed them to turn the corner toward sustainability (Costello, Gaines, and Lynham 2008) and profitability (Costello et al. 2016). But the world’s largest fishing region, Asia, has instead largely pursued open access and input controls, achieving less long-run fishery management success (World Bank 2017).
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