Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets

Over the past 60 years, the world’s marine fisheries have more than quadrupled their total output from 20 million t to around 80 million t. Yet, a closer examination of the catch statistics, as conducted in this thesis, reveals that this increase was achieved by geographical expansion of the global...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Swartz, Wilfram
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: University of British Columbia 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44360
id ftcanadathes:oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/44360
record_format openpolar
spelling ftcanadathes:oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/44360 2023-05-15T17:36:50+02:00 Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets Swartz, Wilfram 2013-04-22T15:19:03Z http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44360 eng eng University of British Columbia http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44360 Electronic Thesis or Dissertation 2013 ftcanadathes 2014-03-30T00:48:06Z Over the past 60 years, the world’s marine fisheries have more than quadrupled their total output from 20 million t to around 80 million t. Yet, a closer examination of the catch statistics, as conducted in this thesis, reveals that this increase was achieved by geographical expansion of the global fisheries from the coastal waters off North Atlantic and Northwest Pacific to the waters in the Southern Hemisphere and into the high seas. The globalization of fisheries coincides with the globalization of seafood markets and an analysis of trade statistics carried out in this dissertation indicates net flows of marine fisheries resources into the markets of the EU, Japan and USA with their “consumption footprints” covering most of the world’s ocean. Recognizing the global limit to growth, various international initiatives have been launched in recent years to improve the state of world’s marine fisheries. This thesis examines fisheries subsidies negotiations at the World Trade Organization and its failure to reach an agreement, despite a general consensus that some forms of fisheries subsidies contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. The failure of the WTO negotiations exposes the difficulties of overcoming the status quo in fisheries. This thesis argues that improvements in our understanding of the states of world fisheries and their values and economic contributions are critical to achieving meaningful political actions. As such, the thesis explores two approaches for enhancing existing fisheries statistics. First, a new methodology for predicting the values of seafood across various national markets was developed, allowing improved economic evaluations of fisheries resources and the fisheries industry. Second, a recently developed catch-reconstruction method was applied to the fisheries of Japan to examine the scale of previously ignored components of marine fisheries catch even in countries where fisheries are generally considered to be data-rich. The two approaches presented, jointly, should enable the development of a more comprehensive picture of the state of marine fisheries which can then be presented to the public; a picture that, combined with other efforts by fisheries scholars around the world, I hope, will speak loud enough to initiate the transition to sustainable fishing. Thesis North Atlantic Theses Canada/Thèses Canada (Library and Archives Canada) Pacific
institution Open Polar
collection Theses Canada/Thèses Canada (Library and Archives Canada)
op_collection_id ftcanadathes
language English
description Over the past 60 years, the world’s marine fisheries have more than quadrupled their total output from 20 million t to around 80 million t. Yet, a closer examination of the catch statistics, as conducted in this thesis, reveals that this increase was achieved by geographical expansion of the global fisheries from the coastal waters off North Atlantic and Northwest Pacific to the waters in the Southern Hemisphere and into the high seas. The globalization of fisheries coincides with the globalization of seafood markets and an analysis of trade statistics carried out in this dissertation indicates net flows of marine fisheries resources into the markets of the EU, Japan and USA with their “consumption footprints” covering most of the world’s ocean. Recognizing the global limit to growth, various international initiatives have been launched in recent years to improve the state of world’s marine fisheries. This thesis examines fisheries subsidies negotiations at the World Trade Organization and its failure to reach an agreement, despite a general consensus that some forms of fisheries subsidies contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. The failure of the WTO negotiations exposes the difficulties of overcoming the status quo in fisheries. This thesis argues that improvements in our understanding of the states of world fisheries and their values and economic contributions are critical to achieving meaningful political actions. As such, the thesis explores two approaches for enhancing existing fisheries statistics. First, a new methodology for predicting the values of seafood across various national markets was developed, allowing improved economic evaluations of fisheries resources and the fisheries industry. Second, a recently developed catch-reconstruction method was applied to the fisheries of Japan to examine the scale of previously ignored components of marine fisheries catch even in countries where fisheries are generally considered to be data-rich. The two approaches presented, jointly, should enable the development of a more comprehensive picture of the state of marine fisheries which can then be presented to the public; a picture that, combined with other efforts by fisheries scholars around the world, I hope, will speak loud enough to initiate the transition to sustainable fishing.
format Thesis
author Swartz, Wilfram
spellingShingle Swartz, Wilfram
Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
author_facet Swartz, Wilfram
author_sort Swartz, Wilfram
title Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
title_short Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
title_full Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
title_fullStr Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
title_full_unstemmed Five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
title_sort five not so easy pieces : globalization of fishing and seafood markets
publisher University of British Columbia
publishDate 2013
url http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44360
geographic Pacific
geographic_facet Pacific
genre North Atlantic
genre_facet North Atlantic
op_relation http://hdl.handle.net/2429/44360
_version_ 1766136458123411456