Summary of Article - Fisheries worth $246B worldwide
Article: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/09/14/fisheries-global-value.html
Article: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/09/14/fisheries-global-value.html
The study conducted on the fishing industry around the world by UBC showed that the fish landings value have soared from $80 billion annually to $246 billion annually once they factored in the can manufacturing to feed the livestock and boat building sectors. This also informs us about how much the commercial fisheries provide jobs and support the income of people around the world by earning revenue through the fish landings and the several service sectors in which they support as well. Some of the sectors that they support are the processing sector, restaurants, and as well as the agricultural sector. Asia makes $133 billion and North America makes $60 billion of the total value of the fisheries annually.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a several months ago really had a great impact on their economy due to the loss of many resources as well as the many sectors that they support. As technology continues to improve, it also increases the numbers of fish being caught. Therefore, it has caused overfishing in more than half of the economic zones in the world that could have been used to feed the people from poor nations. Also, there are “catch losses” (landings of overfished fish minus what could have been caught) that have amounted to a loss of $36 billion and 100 million tonnes (in fish landings) in 2004. Governments of maritime countries have also encouraged overfishing by putting subsidiaries into fuel and boat building instead of protecting marine areas. The subsidies have been as high as $27 million globally in 2003. Therefore, it will deplete the overall resource of fish globally that could further damage the whole world’s economy.
Connections
There are several main concepts that connect this article on fisheries to chapter one in the textbook such as scarcity of a resource, opportunity cost, and the law of diminishing returns.
Fish is a resource and as a resource it is limited in amount, therefore making it scarce. Its scarcity makes it a ‘lucrative but fragile resource’ as mentioned in the article. It has been made even more scarce by overfishing during the past several years as improvement of technology continues to aid the process of capturing more and more fish.
Fish plays a significantly important role in the world’s economy because it turns in a lot of revenue and it offers many jobs to a huge percentage of people around the world in places such as Asia and North America. However, there are opportunity costs that are attached to fisheries. There are millions of undernourished people that could have been fed if their fish resource had not been overfished. Overfishing can also damage the natural habitat of marine animals and it can also affect the future number of fish stock such as the depletion of Nothern Cod fish mentioned in the textbook.
So overfishing makes place for the law of diminishing returns to act accordingly. Since the amount of fish is limited as I have mentioned before and more overfishing occurs, there will be a decrease of fish landings in the years after. The reason is because fish will require a certain time to reproduce and grow. When overfishing happens, there are less fish to reproduce with each other causing less offsprings. Time also plays an important factor in the growth of the fish because not enough time will be given for them to mature to their full potential (bigger fish). Therefore, it creates catch losses (what could have been caught compared to what was actually caught). “In 2000, the authors contend, the landed value loss was as high as $36 billion, with catch losses estimated at 10 million tonnes in 2004.” As you can see a lot of money and fish are loss due to overfishing.
Reflections
I never really knew that the fishing industry made so much money, provided so many jobs, and supported many types of sectors around the world. It made me think that if fish were to somehow go extinct, it would throw the whole world into a financial crisis (total chaos) that would be really hard to get out of. This issue could be in par with the banking problems in the US that have caused a recession in these past few years and put many major companies at stake and caused a huge amount of unemployment. Many people in Asia that depend on fish would lose their livelihood and cause greater hunger and economic problems if fish were to disappear.
I agree with this article that better managing of resources could help solve one of the world’s biggest problems, starvation in impoverished countries around the world. From this point of view, fishing industries and goverment that put subsidies to encourage fishing seem like cold-hearted people who are “depriving hungry nations of the potential to feed themselves with good, wild fish” (quote by Sumaila in the article). Instead they should implement laws on the amount of fish that is allowed to be caught for commercial reasons so these nation would have some sort of food source available to them to reduce starvation rates.
There are many who rather overfish because it is lucrative rather that protect endangered species of fish. It is like the shark fin problem in which many sharks are killed for only their fins. (I learned this in the documentary called ‘Shark Water.’) Even though they are very endangered, people continue to kill sharks (even if it is illegal) for their fins because they sell for a lot of money. I think that overfishing is wrong because it has a great impact ecologically (destroying habitats) as well as economically (catch losses). Many opportunity costs are also increased when overfishing happens.
Reflections
I never really knew that the fishing industry made so much money, provided so many jobs, and supported many types of sectors around the world. It made me think that if fish were to somehow go extinct, it would throw the whole world into a financial crisis (total chaos) that would be really hard to get out of. This issue could be in par with the banking problems in the US that have caused a recession in these past few years and put many major companies at stake and caused a huge amount of unemployment. Many people in Asia that depend on fish would lose their livelihood and cause greater hunger and economic problems if fish were to disappear.
I agree with this article that better managing of resources could help solve one of the world’s biggest problems, starvation in impoverished countries around the world. From this point of view, fishing industries and goverment that put subsidies to encourage fishing seem like cold-hearted people who are “depriving hungry nations of the potential to feed themselves with good, wild fish” (quote by Sumaila in the article). Instead they should implement laws on the amount of fish that is allowed to be caught for commercial reasons so these nation would have some sort of food source available to them to reduce starvation rates.
There are many who rather overfish because it is lucrative rather that protect endangered species of fish. It is like the shark fin problem in which many sharks are killed for only their fins. (I learned this in the documentary called ‘Shark Water.’) Even though they are very endangered, people continue to kill sharks (even if it is illegal) for their fins because they sell for a lot of money. I think that overfishing is wrong because it has a great impact ecologically (destroying habitats) as well as economically (catch losses). Many opportunity costs are also increased when overfishing happens.
