Essays on Natural Resource Management: Managing Industrial Marine Fisheries of Bangladesh

Abstract

The thesis is a combination of five essays: one introductory essay (Chapter 1), three core essays (Chapter 2, 3 and 4) and one concluding essay (Chapter 5). The first essay (Chapter 1) gives an overview of management on marine capture fisheries, and focuses on the importance of economic perspectives and analyses in fisheries management. The second essay (Chapter 2) investigates the effect of input control on vessels’ performance of the industrial marine fisheries of Bangladesh. The vessels’ performance in this study is measured in term of technical efficiency and productivity. The third essay (Chapter 3) estimates biological reference points of industrial marine fisheries of Bangladesh in order to find out the current status of the industrial marine fisheries. Biomass dynamic models: a dynamic version of surplus production models, are used to estimate biological reference points. The fourth essay (Chapter 4) measures the economic performance of the industrial marine fisheries of Bangladesh. This study develops two single-species and single-fleet models separately for both shrimp and fish fisheries. Current and potential economic performance of both shrimp and fish fisheries in this study are measured using three different bio-economic models, including a bio-economic model for open access fisheries, a static profit maximization problem and a dynamic present value-maximization problem in continuous time. The fifth essay (Chapter 5) discusses the impact of traditional command and control approaches to marine fisheries management in light of evidence from industrial marine fisheries of Bangladesh. The study shows that command and control approaches to the industrial marine fisheries management of Bangladesh fail to increase efficiency and to control overcapitalization. Evidence shows that fisheries suffer overcapacity and fisheries are economically unprofitable. As marine fisheries legislation in Bangladesh is too old and fisheries policies are more focused on increased production with little emphasis on conservation or sustainable fisheries management, a reform in legislation and management systems of the industrial marine fisheries of Bangladesh is needed. To protect economic and biological overfishing, a correct management target and right-based approach that is, an incentive adjusting approach is needed so that the fisheries can be both economically profitable and biologically sustainable.