Browsing by Author "Oljemark, Kaius"

Lack of scientific knowledge of how marine ecosystems relate to each other, how they are producing services and how to quantify ecosystem flows at adequate accuracy, have led to a situation where marine ecosystems are undervalued or even completely ignored in decision-making process. More research is needed from the value of marine ecosystem services in order to better integrate them into decision-making. Seafood production is essential part of the marine provisioning services and the aim of this study is to estimate the potential value of the European Union’s seafood production in the Northeast Atlantic (FAO fishing area 27). Fish stocks are currently managed too short-sightedly in EU and for that reason, EU is unable to take full advantage of the true potential of the stocks. This study provides quantitative analysis of the potential benefits of the rebuilt fish stocks in the Northeast Atlantic for the EU. Growth potential of EU’s wild capture production in Northeast Atlantic were calculated by comparing current production and theoretical maximal production, where all fish stocks could provide Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) at the same time. Besides quantifying potential value of EU landings in Northeast Atlantic, this study also compares different rebuilding pathways to achieve collective MSY. According to the result of this study, EU fishing fleet would get €4.43 billion more annual profit if every stock in the Northeast Atlantic could produce MSY. In order fish stocks to produce MSY, the long-term effort level of EU fleet should be dropped by 38%. Total revenue of fishing is maximised when stocks are harvested to a level of Maximum Economic Yield (MEY), where annual profit would be €4.64 billion more than currently while long-term effort level should be dropped by 48%. In this study, several management strategies for rebuilding the Northeast Atlantic stocks were compared, and rebuilding time and net present value were calculated for each management strategy. The results address that it is preferable to decrease effort level as soon as possible to match the effort level of MSY or MEY. The sooner the optimum effort level is reached, the shorter is the rebuilding time and the higher is the net present value.