“Lost” First Nations Fisheries: Some economic

insightsU. Rashid Sumaila

Fisheries Economics Research UnitGlobal Fisheries Cluster

The University of British ColumbiaVancouver, Canada

r.sumaila@oceans.ubc.ca

FNFC Annual General Meeting Victoria, November 7 , 2017

Outline

• Brief introduction to OceanCanadaPartnership;

• Our oceans and rivers are interconnected;

• Community values and fisheries economics.

The OceanCanada Partnership• 6 years core funding provided by Social Sciences &

Humanities Research Council of Canada (2014-2020).

• A multi-institution interdisciplinary research partnership:• 20 formal partners from university, government, industry;

and non-governmental sectors;• 40 researchers and collaborators; • 40 student trainees.

• Emphasis on integrating diverse disciplinary perspectives as well as regional and local knowledge.

OceanCanada is dedicated to … • building resilient and sustainable oceans;

• synthesizing social, cultural, economic and environmental knowledge about our oceans;

• building scenarios for the future people and the seas;

• work collaboratively towards a pan-Canadian vision for sustainable & healthy coastal-ocean regions;

• creating a national dialogue and shared vision of oceans.

Coastal and Indigenous community access to marine resources and the ocean:

A policy imperative for Canada

Nathan J. Bennett, Maery Kaplan-Hallam, Gerry Augustine, Natalie Ban, Dyhia

Belhabib, Irene Brueckner-Irwin, Anthony Charles, John Couture, Sondra Eger, Lucia

Fanning,

Paul Foley, Anne Marie Goodfellow, Larry Greba, Edward Gregr, Don Hall, Sarah

Harper, Brandon Maloney, Jim McIsaac, Wanli Ou, Evelyn Pinkerton, Darren Porter,

Richard Sparrow, Robert Stephenson, Allison Stocks, U. Rashid Sumaila, Tasha

Sutcliffe, Megan Bailey

Why “Loss” First Nations fisheries?

There is one global ocean

Exclusive economic zones (light blue) and high seas (dark blue)

High seas EEZ

White & Costello (2014) Sumaila et al. (2015)

Close high seas

A pertinent quote to start

“I believe that the great part of miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.”

Beyond economic valuation

• Loss of fish goes beyond direct economic impacts (e.g., landed value and jobs):– Health impacts;– Loss of food security;– Cultural impacts.

• Need to capture these social costs in economic analysis.

Factors that limit access to traditional foods

Source: Elliott and Jayatilaka 2011. Healthy eating and food security for urban Aboriginal peoples living in Vancouver

Remembering future generations:7th Generation thinking

Present Future

Future benefits from today’s perspective

Value

“Egoism is the law of perspectives as it applies to feelingsaccording to which what is closest to us appears to be large andweighty, while size and weight decrease with our distancefrom things”.

Discounting in economics

Harvest profile

0.0

0.20.4

0.60.8

1.01.2

1.4

1 10 19 28 37 46 55 64 73 82 91 100Years

Cat

ch le

vel

Status quoRestoration

To restore or not to restore?

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Status quo CM Restore CM Status quo GM Restore GM

Tot

al d

isco

unte

d ne

t ben

efits

Economics of rebuilding: Conventional versus Intergenerational

Sumaila (2004); Sumaila & Walters (2005)

Qualitative Degree of ‘Smallness’ in BCSSF

LSF 14

Food, Social, Ceremonial

Aboriginal commercial fisheries

Salmon gillnet

Crab trap; Prawn and shrimp trap

Salmon troll; Shrimp and prawn trawl

Herring spawn on kelp (J); Red sea urchin dive; Rockfish hook and line

Green sea urchin dive; Herring roe by seine or gillnet (HS/HG); Category II species

Geoduck dive; Groundfish trawl; Halibut hook and line; Salmon seine

Sablefish by longline or trapGibson & Sumaila (2017)

Fisheries subsidies Small versus large scale fisheries

Schuhbauer, Sumaila et al. (2017)

Narrow versus broad valuationRebuild stocks or not rebuild?

RebuildNot rebuild

Profits less

subsidiesNet of broad benefits

10

Profits

5

After adding FNs benefits from

rebuilding

An illustrative example

Fisheries

Conclusion

• Invitation to OceanCanada Partnership http://www.oceancanada.org/ a.goodfellow@oceans.ubc.ca

• Implications of interconnectedness for bringing back “lost’ FN fisheries;

• We need a fisheries economics that serves people and the environment – we need to move awy from i-fish to we-fish.

Thanks for your attention