Wilf Swartz

The Spatial Expansion and Ecological Footprint of Fisheries (1950 to Present)

Using estimates of the primary production required (PPR) to support fisheries catches (a measure of the footprint of fishing), we analyzed the geographical expansion of the global marine fisheries from 1950 to 2005. We used multiple threshold levels of PPR as percentage of local primary production to define ‘fisheries exploitation’ and applied them to the global dataset of spatially-explicit marine fisheries catches. This approach enabled us to assign exploitation status across a 0.5° latitude/longitude ocean grid system and trace the change in their status over the 56-year time period. This result highlights the global scale expansion in marine fisheries, from the coastal waters off North Atlantic and West Pacific to the waters in the Southern Hemisphere and into the high seas. The southward expansion of fisheries occurred at a rate of almost one degree latitude per year, with the greatest period of expansion occurring in the 1980s and early 1990s. By the mid 1990s, a third of the worlds ocean, and two-thirds of continental shelves, were exploited at a level where PPR of fisheries exceed 10% of PP, leaving only unproductive waters of high seas, and relatively inaccessible waters in the Arctic and Antarctic as the last remaining ‘frontiers.’ The growth in marine fisheries catches for more than half a century was only made possible through exploitation of new fishing grounds. Their rapidly diminishing number indicates a global limit to growth and highlights the urgent need for a transition to sustainable fishing through reduction of PPR.

Benefits of rebuilding global marine fisheries outweigh costs.

Global marine fisheries are currently underperforming, largely due to overfishing. An analysis of global databases finds that resource rent net of subsidies from rebuilt world fisheries could increase from the current negative US

Potential Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Commercial Fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico

13 billion to positive US

Committing to socially responsible seafood

54 billion per year, resulting in a net gain of US

Ex-vessel Fish Price Database: Disaggregating Prices for Low-Priced Species from Reduction Fisheries

600 to US

China's distant-water fisheries in the 21st century

1,400 billion in present value over fifty years after rebuilding. To realize this gain, governments need to implement a rebuilding program at a cost of about US

Sourcing seafood for the three major markets: The EU, Japan and the USA

203 (US

Impact of the Deepwater Horizon well blowout on the economics of US Gulf fisheries

130–US

Arctic fisheries catches in Russia, USA, and Canada: baselines for neglected ecosystems

292) billion in present value. We estimate that it would take just 12 years after rebuilding begins for the benefits to surpass the cost. Even without accounting for the potential boost to recreational fisheries, and ignoring ancillary and non-market values that would likely increase, the potential benefits of rebuilding global fisheries far outweigh the costs.

Global Ex-vessel Fish Price Database Revisited: A New Approach for Estimating ‘Missing’ Prices

Abstract Given the economic and social importance of fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico large marine ecosystem (LME), it is imperative to quantify the potential impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. To provide a preliminary perspective of the consequences of this disaster, spatial databases of annual reported commercial catch and landed value prior to the spill were investigated relative to the location of the fisheries closures during July 2010. Recent trends illustrated by this study suggest that more than 20% of the average annual U.S. commercial catch in the Gulf has been affected by postspill fisheries closures, indicating a potential minimum loss in annual landed value of US