Implications for equity and management

Abstract

The economic efficiency and distribution of benefits from the fisheries of San Miguel Bay, Philippines are examined in this paper. The total annual value of catch from the Bay in 1980-1981 was estimated to be US6 million. Small trawlers, which represented only 3% of the fishing units and employed 7% of the labor force were found to earn the largest shares of total catch value and 50% of the P3 million pure profits, or resource rents. The open access equilibrium of this fishery has not been reached but further increases in fishing effort would reduce economic efficiency and resource rents. Attention is drawn to the divergence between goals of economic efficiency and equity and it is concluded that serious considerations should be given to limiting effective fishing effort in this fishery so as to maintain positive resource rents and to deal with the presently highly skewed distribution of benefits that favors trawlers at the expense of non-trawl gears.