ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF FISHERIES REBUILDING: SIX CANADIAN CASE STUDIES

Many fish populations in Canada are depleted and at risk of further decline. Fisheries loss jeopardizes the social, economic, and health well-being of thousands of Canadians and is therefore of national concern. However, of 56 fish stocks assessed as being in a Critical or Cautious state, only three have rebuilding plans developed for them. As such, there is an urgent need to intensify Canada’s fisheries rebuilding efforts. One of the challenges facing rebuilding fisheries is that it often necessitates an immediate and substantial reduction in fishing mortality. This invariably involves forgoing certain short-term benefits in order to gain the benefits of rebuilt fish stocks in the medium and long term. To investigate the economic and social implications of rebuilding Canada’s fisheries, this study analyzes the socio-economic costs and benefits of rebuilding Canada’s fisheries under six different scenarios of species’ recovery rates and management strategies. We conduct the analysis for six fish stocks representing different biological life histories, geographic distribution, state of fisheries depletion, and socio-economic importance to coastal communities. These fish stocks include: i) Pacific herring Central Coast stock; ii) West Coast Vancouver Island chinook salmon — both aggregate abundance-based management (AABM) and individual stock-based management (ISBM) components; iii) yelloweye rockfish outside population; iv) Atlantic cod NAFO Division 2J3KL; v) Gulf of St. Lawrence Atlantic herring spring spawners NAFO Division 4T; and vi) Atlantic redfish Units 1 and 2.Our results indicate that overall, for the time period studied, all fish stocks — except yelloweye rockfish, which is a long-lived species with a low natural growth rate — would likely experience economic gains from fisheries rebuilding relative to the status quo. Under the most optimistic scenario, northern cod (which has, among the fisheries studied, one of the largest current catch and number of fishers) and Pacific herring are projected to benefit the most by the end of the analysis period, with potential economic gains of seven and 11 times above the status quo, respectively. Under the least optimistic scenario, this gain drops to 0.85 and five times above the status quo, respectively. In most cases, a management strategy involving fishery closure results in higher potential economic gains compared to a low-fishing strategy, regardless of the rate of fish-stock recovery. Not surprisingly, slow recovery scenarios are projected to result in the fewest economic gains. An intergenerational discounting approach, which seeks to explicitly incorporate the interests of future generations in the analysis, increases projected economic benefits compared to conventional discounting, thereby emphasizing the importance of taking a long-term perspective to fisheries rebuilding. Using fish stock assessments as a basis, we estimate that once fish stocks are rebuilt, they can support catches that range from 1.3 to 18 times above the status quo catch level. In terms of social impact, an estimated 5,100 fishers are currently involved in fisheries for the case study fish stocks, who can thus potentially benefit from this projected increase in fish catch in the future. The overall benefits of rebuilding are magnified if we consider the thousands more people in coastal communities who have food, cultural, and other social connections to fish stocks. While rebuilding may likely incur short-term costs for fishers and coastal communities, these need to be seen in light of the fact that without rebuilding and effective fisheries management, we have lost significant amounts of food, jobs, and incomes over the recent decades, and we could lose everything if and when the fish stocks collapse. Recall the cost to fishers and society when the cod stocks off Newfoundland collapsed in 1992.Our results suggest that bearing this short-term cost can lead to economic benefits, which in the long term are an improvement over maintaining the status quo. This suggests that accounting for social impacts is crucial in developing rebuilding plans, especially in terms of access to and allocation of projected economic benefits from rebuilt fish stocks in the future. This study further highlights that rebuilding plans have to be developed while bearing in mind that anticipated fish stock recovery can either be delayed or sped up by future changes in environmental conditions, which, although not modelled here, can change projected economic outcomes. While we show that fisheries rebuilding can improve the biological and economic state of Canadian fish stocks overall, it is also important to emphasize the need for Canada to have strong precautionary fisheries management practices in place for species that are not currently depleted so that fish stocks are managed sustainably, avoiding the need for rebuilding.