The discard ban policy, economic trends and opportunities for the Portuguese fisheries sector

Miguel de Sousa Leitão, Francisco; Baptista, Vânia

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/13360

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
13360 the discard.pdf		630.64 KB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Miguel de Sousa Leitão, Francisco

Baptista, Vânia

Abstract(s)

In this paper the discard ban policy within the Portuguese fisheries sector is discussed and the opportunities and impact in the fisheries economy that arise from sales of unwanted fish under the new landing obligation are evaluated. The decadal mean price of fish (sic)/kg, adjusted for inflation) rose from the 1940s until the 1970s, dropping thereafter. The yearly averaged economic income estimated for discards sales between 1969 and 2009 ranged from 419345 to 2164379(sic). Discard ban sales could contribute from 10% to 53% of the total landed value and 9-34% of the total catches (landings + discards). Under a discard ban policy, the fishing sector with the largest economic contribution for total discards sales would be multispecies (54%), followed by trawl (26%) and seine (20%). On average, fishing sales contributed with 0.63% to gross domestic production (GDP) between 1938 and 2009. Discard sales can increase 1.07-1.46 times more than the fish landing contribution to GDP. After 1983 the average landings/imports economic ratio was 0.28:1, which means that fish imports surpassed landings economic value 3.57 fold. The discard ban policy can create economic opportunities in the national context thus helping to revitalize some specific fisheries sectors.