Cost effectiveness of alternative seabird bycatch mitigation options

1
Cost effectiveness of alternative seabird bycatch
mitigation options

• Sean Pascoe
• Economist
• 15 March 2007
• CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

2
The players
Long line fishing fleet
Yellowfin tuna
Black (ship) rat
Lord Howe island
Flesh footed shearwater
Eastern tuna and billfish fishery
3
The problem

• Seabirds are caught by tuna long-liners operating
  off the east coast of Australia
• Unavoidable part of the production process given
  technologies used
• Externality problem
• Environmental cost not taken into consideration
  by fishers
• Also not reflected in the price consumers pay for
  tuna
• No economic incentive to adopt alternative
  technologies

4
Impact on bird stocks
Stock size trajectory assuming current bycatch
mortality Lord Howe Island shearwater population
Listed as threatened in 2003
Increasing risk of stock collapse
5
Proposed fisheries management solutions

• Conservation objective of 0.05 birds/1000 hooks
  set by the Department of Environment and Heritage
  (DEH)
• Currently 0.779 shearwaters per 1000 hooks in
  waters surrounding Lord Howe Island
• Technical measures introduced in 2003 (trial
  basis)
• Underwater chutes
• Lay the lines directly under the water
• Weighted line
• Sinks faster
• Ban on daylight trawling
• Area closure proposed
• Keep boats away from the problem

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Effectiveness of these measures

• Evidence that technical measures will slow the
  decline, but not reverse it
• Also not achieve target bycatch reduction
• Closed area will reduce bycatch to target levels,
  but at substantial cost to the industry
• Takes out main area of activity in the fishery

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Alternative approach for seabird conservation

• Major source of predation on eggs and fledglings
  is the black rat
• Invasive predators (escaped off ships)
• Removal of rats results in greater increase in
  population size than eliminating bycatch

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Cost effectiveness
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Summary

• Two problems
• Seabirds die as a result of bycatch from tuna
  fishing (externality)
• Seabird population declining
• Result of fishing and invasive species
• Two possible solutions
• Close large area of the fishery
• Reduced seabird mortality to acceptable level
• Results in population increasing
• Very high cost to the fishing industry
• Eradicate invasive rat population
• Greater increase in seabird population
• Very low cost (can be paid by fishing industry)
• Does not stop the problem of seabirds being
  killed by fishing

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Compensatory Mitigation net welfare benefit

• Alison MacIntyre

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Problem extinction of shearwater birds
Stock size trajectory assuming current bycatch
mortality Lord Howe Island shearwater population
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Two causes bycatch and rats

• Bycatch is unpriced externality
• Can be addressed directly through regulation
• Closure of fishing grounds
• Force adoption of new technology
• very expensive
• In terms of per bird saved (approx 10000 per
  bird)
• And in terms of loss of income for fishermen
  (approx 42m AUD)

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• 75 of seabirds listed are threatened by invasive
  species while 49 are threatened by fisheries
• Reducing bycatch to zero wont save the birds
• Bycatch isnt even the biggest problem facing the
  birds
• But it is the highest profile cause of mortality

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Rats!!

• Eradication of the rats is a public good that no
  individual will willingly pay for
• The shearwater species has an existence value,
  and as a whole will provide unpriced
  environmental services

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Projected population size of shearwater breeding
pairs
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(No Transcript)
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Why should the fishermen pay anything at all?

• They benefit from exploiting the common pool
  resource (tuna) that produces part of the problem
  (bycatch)
• Divert some of that revenue to maintaining a
  public good and ensuring the survival of the
  shearwater birds
• (Kind of like blood money)

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Compensatory mitigation

• Established principle in addressing externalities
  indirectly
• Eg reforestation programmes to offset greenhouse
  gas emissions
• Construct new wetlands to offset destruction of
  ecosystems in developments
• Do these precedents exist because we think its
  morally wrong to pollute or destroy wetlands?
• Or are we accustomed to making these tradeoffs?
• Or do we just want to ensure some level of
  environmental services are still provided?

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• Allows pursuit of concurrent goals
• Economic development
• Conserving biodiversity
• At the lowest cost

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Net welfare increase

• More birds are saved through compensatory
  mitigation
• At a lower overall cost to society
• Fishermen dont lose their livelihoods
• Tuna prices dont increase
• Rat eradication itself has positive externalities
  
• Palm seed industry benefits make it worthwhile
• Other rare native species

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What about the birds that die?

• They benefit because they are martyrs who die so
  their tribe can live
• They become folk heroes, songs are sung about
  them, teenage middleclass birds expressing
  imagined angst can wear Shearwater Guevara
  shirts
• Seriously introduce bycatch levy to encourage
  fishermen to improve technology and reduce
  bycatch mortality.
• If levy is high enough it will provide
  sufficient incentive to improve technology

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What about the birds that die?

• Ethical issue is it wrong to kill the birds in
  the first place?
• Depends on whose ethics you use.
• If it is morally wrong you have to presume there
  is an absolute truth to base the argument on
• Consequentialism, Machiavelli (ends justifies the
  means) etc
• Deontological arguments (rightness or wrongness
  of act is derived from the nature of the act
  itself)
• Is it wrong to kill the fish?

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• In developing a policy for management of
  resources for society as a whole, use the
  prevailing norms as a guide to what is acceptable
• Clear precedents for making a tradeoff between
  what is optimal and what is practical

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Innocent birds sacrificing their lives for a
tuna sandwich?Elisabeth Richardson
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The Big Question

• Does society want to just ensure the survival of
  seabirds, or stop them being killed as part of
  the production process?
• I say yes to the latter!

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An externality problem

• Seabirds are being killed
• Seabirds, like all creatures, are part of our
  ecosystem
• Tourism value
• Unpriced externality

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The facts

• Seabirds or the flesh footed shearwater is an
  endangered species
• 8 or 7.2 millions tonnes of global fisheries
  catch consists of non-target species which are
  then discarded (FAO, 2004)
• 49 of seabirds are threatened directly or
  indirectly by fisheries (Wilcox, Donlan Pascoe)

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The value of the Shearwater

• Disutility for nature lovers
• - Death ok up to a point?
• - The nature of the death
• The social cost death is acceptable as long as
  the most efficient outcome is reached

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Who cares?

• People are willing to pay a higher price for food
  that has not harmed animals in the process
• Example dolphin friendly tuna
• So there is a hierarchy animals
• What if it were puppies being killed?

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The end of man

• The programs that support breeding programs for
  birds while condoning the continuation of murder
  of innocent birds in a brutal callous manner
  ignores the fundamental point that the only
  good economic system is not one that maximises
  the sum of utility of humans alone. I beg to
  state that the Utility of animals and plants and
  all other living organisms even if their
  preferences are not weighted as heavily as humans
  must be included. To argue otherwise is to commit
  the same mistake as the advocates of slavery did,
  that only a narrow set of preferences must be
  included, that is that the preferences of white
  slave owning population be incorporated, this
  point is revolutionary now however all of you
  must realise that you do not wish to be on the
  wrong side of history. To see what is right does
  not require economics, however Economics as a
  tool should be used to pursue greater goals than
  simple maximisation of Sum of Utility of Homo
  sapiens
• (Ashad Ali)

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Proposed response

• Regulation
• Area closures

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Whats with existence

• Compensatory mechanism
• - The number of seabirds caught as bycatch will
  increase as population increases assuming bycatch
  is proportional to population size
• - Justified killing
• If you control numbers, youre already admitting
  that their life is of some importance. Why then
  tackle the problem this way?
• So, seabirds are merely martyrs for the rest of
  the saved or stabilising population

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Conclusion

• Is it ok to say that up to a certain point we
  allow seabirds to die?
• No!
• Does society care?
• Yes!
• It is simply not good enough to focus on the
  existence value
• Lets address the real problem birds are dying