Economics, fisheries and responsible fisheries management

Introduction

Economics is the basis for life. Every one of us is a practicing economist in himself/herself in life. The principle of economics, when applied to fields like agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, poultry and other enterprises becomes more valuable. Initially fisheries did not consider economics as a component. But later in course of time, the fishery biologists realized that economics is a vital component of fisheries management. In this lecture we will see the concepts of economics, fisheries and responsible management separately and finally link them for a better understanding.

Economics: A few basic concepts

 Wants are unlimited but the means to satisfy them are limited. This is the basis of scarcity definition of Economics. In the wider sense, the resources at our disposal to meet our requirements are limited. We have to allocate the resources among the competing alternatives, for which the economic theory helps us. Optimization of resource use to obtain maximum profit is one of the aims for applying economic principle in entrepreneurship. In fisheries also, the economic principles are allocated for formulating fisheries management measures. In fisheries, the point of optimum harvest occurs where the average revenue cost cuts the average revenue curve, contrary to the other fields, where the optimum occurs where marginal cost cuts the marginal revenue curve.

Sustainable Fisheries Yield

The sustainable yield in fishing commonly referred to as ―Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) is a biological phenomenon. MSY means that level of fish catch or yield that can be harvested from a given system in perpetuity without affecting the stock of the system (or the sea). In other words, a catch level is said to be sustainable whenever it equals the growth rate of the population since it can be maintained for ever. As long as the population size remains constant, the growth rate will remain constant as well.

Journal of Fisheries Research welcomes submissions via Online Submission System

www.scholarscentral.org/submission/fisheries-research.html

Anna D Parker

Journal Manager

Journal of Fisheries Research

Email: fisheriesres@emedscholar.com