Record Details
An Analysis of the Economic Benefits of MSC Certification for the South African Hake Fishery
ScholarsArchive at Oregon State University
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | An Analysis of the Economic Benefits of MSC Certification for the South African Hake Fishery |
| Names |
Purves, Martin
(creator) Lallemand, Philippe (creator) Venter, Cobus (creator) Bergh, Mike (creator) Thompson, Ernst (creator) Olsen, Petter (creator) |
| Date Issued | 2014-07-07 (iso8601) |
| Note | Presentation |
| Abstract | Ecolabelling has become an essential component of the global sustainable seafood trade. The MSC is currently the world leader in certification and ecolabelling programs for wild capture fisheries. While the environmental benefits of certification have been widely recognised, its economic benefits are often anecdotal or unknown. The South African hake trawl fishery was first certified in 2004 and re-certified in 2010 for a further 5-years. Two studies were conducted to investigate the potential economic benefits of MSC certification to the Hake fishery. Firstly, FishStat and Comtrade data were collected to analyse the global production and trade in whitefish, focussing on hake. Additional information was collected from industry sources, NGOs and from MSC-specific data on export volumes and values. A succession of four scenarios were proposed to simulate possible economic outcomes resulting from shifting to a non-certified fishery. The method then compared the current economic worth of the fishery to the progressive loss of value following these scenarios; the difference representing the net worth of MSC-certification to the fishery. The analysis showed that the fishery‘s NPV of combining these scenarios over a 5-year period corresponds to a 35% reduction vis-à-vis the status quo. Furthermore a second study based on multipliers derived from industry input-output analysis and on a comprehensive Social Accounting Matrix showed that MSC certification contributes an estimated 6,800 to 13,600 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in the hake industry. Together these studies showed that retaining MSC-certification is critical in order to maintain high levels of employment and current market position. |
| Genre | Presentation |
| Topic | Fisheries Economics |
| Identifier | Purves, Martin, P. Lallemand, C. Venter, M. Bergh, E. Thompson and P. Olsen. 2014. An Analysis of the Economic Benefits of MSC Certification for the South African Hake Fishery. In: Towards ecosystem based management of fisheries: what role can economics play?: Proceedings of the Seventeenth Biennial Conference of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade, July 7-11, 2014, Brisbane, Australia. Complied by Ann L. Shriver & Melissa Errend. Corvallis, OR: International Institute of Fisheries. |
