How did a network of marine protected areas impact adjacent fisheries? Evidence from Australia

Rachel Nichols, Satoshi Yamazaki and Sarah Jennings

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2020, vol. 65, issue 01

Abstract: Marine-protected areas (MPAs) are an effective means of improving habitat quality and biodiversity in the world’s oceans. While the advantages of MPAs as a mechanism for conservation and biodiversity are well established, the potential improvements to fishery performance resulting from a network of MPAs are still being established. Countries around the world have committed to establishing networks of MPAs within their waters by 2020, in response to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. This, coupled with the increasing global demand for seafood and heavy reliance on fishery resources as a source of economic development for many coastal communities, means that an understanding of how these networks can be expected to impact fishery performance is extremely important. We use a difference-in-difference modelling approach to isolate the change in the fishery performance associated with the south-east marine reserve network in Australia. We find no evidence that the economic performance of adjacent fisheries was negatively impacted by the network. This lack of impact is likely due to a network design explicitly intended to avoid effort displacement in key fisheries, along with fishery management changes intended to remove excess fishing capacity.

Keywords: Demand and Price Analysis; Environmental Economics and Policy; Livestock Production/Industries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/342945/files/H ... rotected%20areas.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How did a network of marine protected areas impact adjacent fisheries? Evidence from Australia (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aareaj:342945

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.342945

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().