Assessing the impacts of strong user rights in fisheries: The case of the Philippines marine fisheries

Previous research has concluded that a transition to SURFs (strong user rights in fisheries) has several economic, environmental, and social impacts. In this paper, the problem of assessing the values of these impacts is considered. First, this kind of an assessment is considered in general terms. It is found that the values of the impacts depend in general on the empirical situation at hand. Therefore, a broad result that a transition to SURFs is either beneficial or detrimental does not seem to be available. Following this finding, it is attempted to evaluate empirically prominent impacts of installing SURFs in the Philippines Marine fisheries. On the basis of the available data and some simple bioeconomic modelling, it is found that the economic and biological impacts are mostly beneficial and their sum highly positive. Because of lack of data, the social impacts of SURFs could not be evaluated. However, it appears unlikely that they are detrimental enough to render a transition to SURFs inadvisable.

Automated summary

Previous research has shown that transitioning to SURFs in fisheries has economic, environmental, and social impacts. This paper focuses on assessing these impacts. It is found that the values of the impacts depend on the specific situation, making it difficult to conclude whether a transition to SURFs is beneficial or detrimental. The paper uses empirical data and bioeconomic modeling to evaluate the economic and biological impacts in the Philippines Marine fisheries, finding them mostly beneficial. However, the social impacts could not be evaluated due to lack of data.