Effects of global fisheries on developing countries

The global seafood market offers a lot of opportunities, but also raises challenges in terms of how such aquatic resources are managed. This study deals with fisheries and trade, focusing on developing countries.<br /><br />The paper notes that for many developing countries, fish is an important net export good. However, in most of these countries, fisheries are often characterised by poorly defined property rights, accompanied by over-capitalisation where too many vessels and fishermen catch too few fish from too small stocks.<br /><br />The document underscores that the combination of pure open access and trade liberalisation may reduce welfare and stocks for a country; this is an outcome that can be reinforced by the common use of bad subsidies. Nevertheless, trade liberalisation may have an additional positive impactby promoting the development of property rights in response to increased fish exploitation.<br /><br />Conclusions are as follows:<br /> when trade liberalisation is concerned, the WTO can play a helpful role by adopting a broader classification of subsidies to help eliminate bad subsidies (e.g. public support of vessel construction) it can also contribute positively by establishing rules that abolish fishing rights outside developing coastal countries provided at limited or zero cost identically, the WTO can also assist by distinguishing good subsidies, which are desirable targets when rich countries allocate aid resource to developing countries<br />Recommendations include:<br /> more focus should be put on changing the motivation of the fishers; providing fishers with economic rights and accompanying responsibilities would make incentives effective and governance improved, leading to promote more sustainable fishing practices fisheries&rsquo; support from rich countries should concentrate on capacity building in fisheries management, such as stock assessment and monitoring and enforcement<br />Still, the greatest future challenge in terms of fisheries is to find ways to support development of institutions in poor but liberalised economies.