Improving fishing incomes when resources are overfished

Abstract

Despite increased evidence of overfishing of coastal and inland resources in the Indo-Pacific region, government fisheries development programmes, for the most part, retain their 'production' orientation. Using the familiar static economic model of the fishery and assuming the resource is both biologically and economically overfished, the author examines the likely impact on sustainable yields and fishing incomes of various development programmes. He argues in favour of programmes that seek to increase the opportunity wage of fishermen, because, of the alternatives examined, only this results in increases in both sustainable yields and fishermen's income.