The Socio-Economics of the West, Central and Southern African Coastal Communities

2.3 Comparison of theWest, Central and Southern African LME Fisheries

The DOI for all three LMEs, before adjusting for MSY or subtracting 10 per cent for fish nurseries, totals an estimated US$ 23.35 billion (see appendix D). 122 The GCLME fisheries, with an estimated US$ 18.8 billion DOI, provides the bulk of the total DOI, followed by the CCLME fisheries with US$ 4.1 billion and then the BCLME fisheries with US$ 517 million (Figure 17; all figures include IUU catch). The GCLME ocean region is 2.2 times the size of the CCLME which would perhaps explain the larger DOI, but the GCLME’s estimated per hectare DOI of US$ 74.3 is still twice that of the CCLME per hectare impact of US$ 35.9. 123 The GCLME DOI figure is about 31 times that of the BCLME even though the GCLME catch of approximately 1.59 million tons (2003) is only about 1.6 times that of the BCLME catch of 0.96 million tons (2006). 124 Furthermore, the DOI estimates for Angola’s fisheries comes to $105 million in the BCLME study versus over $2.5 billion (not adjusted for MSY levels or double-counting of fish nurseries) in the GCLME study. These massive differences elucidate a disparity in valuation methodologies.

BCLME, $517

CCLME, $4,040.8

GCLME, $18,795.4

Figure 17: The Direct Output Impact (DOI) from each of the west, central and southern African LME fisheries in US$ million per year. Not adjusted to Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) levels. The value of fish nurseries has not been subtracted from the total. The DOI is chosen as a measure for comparison in Figure 17 because the BCLME study does not examine MSY levels nor deduct for the impact of fish nurseries (a coastal ecosystem review is not part of the study). The GCLME and CCLME values include the IUU catch values. Source: Sumaila (2015), Interwies and Görlitz (2013), Interwies (2011)), Chukwuone et al. (2009).

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