by
Rögnvaldur Hannesson89
Summary
This paper discusses three issues of sustainability. First, in growing economies it will be difficult to maintain the incomes of fishermen on par with other groups unless the number of fishermen declines, due to the limits nature imposes on the total catches of fish. Secondly, environmental variations make it difficult to sustain catches from specific stocks at an even level over long periods. Since the fluctuations in different stocks are not perfectly correlated, and are sometimes negatively correlated, it may nevertheless be possible to sustain incomes from fishing despite dramatic declines in individual stocks. Third, specific and temporary subsidies in controlled fisheries may promote sustainability of incomes and reduce fleet overcapacity. These points are illustrated by examples drawn from the history of the Norwegian fisheries in the latter part of the last century.
1. INTRODUCTION
Let me begin with a story that has nothing to do with fish. Early in the last century some people in Norway became concerned that there would be a shortage of high quality wood for skis. Ash trees were planted to ensure adequate supplies (the ash tree is good for making skis). The trees have long since reached maturity but are still standing. The market for wooden skis is not what it used to be. The last time an athlete set a world record on wooden skis was in the early 1970s. Since then skis of synthetic materials have taken over.
The story illustrates that whatever meaning sustainability has it is not a process that repeats itself in an identical fashion over and over again. Conditions change and require new solutions. Some of these changes are of our own making, like changes in technology which make some materials obsolete and others precious. Other changes are caused by natural forces beyond our control and occur on different time scales. The resulting adjustment problems can be acute and cyclical or incremental and trendlike. The fisheries offer examples of both. Some fish stocks have collapsed suddenly, while others have gradually diminished. Sometimes there have been technological leaps, such as the introduction of the sonar and the power block in the purse seine fisheries in Iceland and Norway in the 1960s. At other times technological progress occurs gradually. The markets for some products have eroded or disappeared (seal skins, whale oil), while the markets for others have expanded.
This note addresses three issues pertaining to sustainability or non-sustainability in fisheries. First, what are the challenges posed by economic growth? In a growing economy, the growth of incomes in sectors where technological progress is for some reason impeded will lag behind. In purely technological terms the fishing industry seems anything but hampered in the development of productivity. The industry is, however, subject to limitations in productivity growth imposed by nature.
Not only is the ability of nature to support fish stocks limited, it varies over time for reasons that have nothing to do with fisheries. As a result, the abundance of fish stocks varies for reasons other than fishing and on time scales that may differ from one stock to another. This natural variability of fish stocks makes it difficult to sustain fisheries at even levels over long periods for individual fish stocks. If, however, we are concerned with sustaining incomes, or utilizing the productivity of nature in a sustainable way albeit in the form of different types of fish, there is less reason to focus on individual stocks, as the variations in the yield from different stocks are not perfectly correlated and sometimes inversely correlated. The variability of fish stocks, and how “new” stocks come to replace “old” ones, is the second issue to be addressed.
Finally, there is the issue of subsidies. Subsidies are generally acknowledged to make fisheries less sustainable. This, however, depends critically on the management regime applied. Usually the explicit or implicit assumption has been that there is little or no management. If, on the other hand, there are controls of some kind, subsidies can be explicitly targeted to improve rather than impair sustainability, provided they are made contingent and temporary.
The history of the Norwegian fisheries in the latter part of the last century illustrates these three points. In this note I shall provide an overview of the development of the Norwegian fisheries since the early 1960s, and in some cases since 1950, with these issues in mind.
2. ECONOMIC GROWTH AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY OF FISHERIES
Economic growth poses its own challenges to the sustainability of fishing. Sustained economic growth has brought a sustained increase in labour income, partly in terms of monetary income per hour worked, and partly through less time worked in order to obtain any given income. This poses no problem in the sectors where the productivity of labour increases and which are the engines of economic growth. Not only are these industries able to sustain higher wages, but the productivity increases occurring in these industries are the very drivers of the wage increases accompanying economic growth, enabling labour to share in its fruits.
Even in a growing economy there are some sectors where labour productivity does not rise. These sectors are up against some real constraints of a technological nature which preclude or limit increases in productivity. These sectors are typically service sectors involving intensive use of labour where better technology has a limited impact on the output or cannot be substituted for the use of labour. It takes a surgeon to operate a patient, and there is limited help in providing him with two knives instead of one. My Fair Lady does not become more enjoyable if the actors sing twice as fast or cut out Professor Higgins. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the demand for such services increases as countries become richer. The result is raising prices (or higher subsidies) for such services, enabling the surgeons or the actors to enjoy rising salaries on par with those who work in industries where increases in productivity sustain rising incomes.
The fisheries sector has some things in common with the sectors where productivity rises due to technological improvement, but also some things in common with the sectors where there are severe impediments to increases in productivity. The technological advances that have occurred in the fisheries over the last decades are well known. We now have fish finding equipment, mechanical devices to haul nets that in days past were pulled by hand, and even computer controlled hand lines which jig and pull up the line when enough fish have been hooked. This has enormously increased the fishing power of boats. This is sometimes seen as a part of the problem in world fisheries because the limited productivity of nature ultimately constrains the amount of fish that can be hauled out of the sea, no matter how advanced the technology is.
The limitation to advances in productivity imposed by Mother Nature is what the fisheries sector has in common with those sectors of the economy where there are technological limitations to productivity increases. Unfortunately, inadequate government regulations and the absence of property rights to fish stocks or use rights in fishing have often enticed the industry to engage in a self-defeating attempt to increase the output of fish despite the limits imposed by nature. Under those circumstances, technological advances exacerbate the problem rather than provide the opportunity to raise incomes and contribute to overall economic growth.
Rising prices of fish or increased government subsidies are not feasible solutions to the problems of productivity growth in fisheries. Producers of fish in a growing economy are not able to raise the prices of fish as much as they might need in order to maintain their wages, because their fish is sold in competition with other fish and other types of food from other sources. Subsidies to theatre performances probably have few harmful effects while subsidies to fisheries are likely to accelerate the depletion of fish stocks, although this depends critically on the kind of regulatory regime in place, as we shall see below.
There is only one way out of this dilemma, and that is to reduce the number of people employed in fishing. With the amount of fish being roughly constant and given by nature, a reduction in the number of people employed would make it possible to increase the incomes of those who remain and keep up with the rise in incomes elsewhere in the economy. For this to be possible one or both of two things must happen: either fishermen have to be provided with more capital equipment in order to increase their productivity, or productivity must increase through better technology. As has already been mentioned, the fishing industry the world over has experienced impressive improvement in technology.
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate these points. Figure 1 shows the value of the catches of fish in Norway, in constant value of money, and the number of fishermen since 1950. The value of the fish catches roughly doubled from 1950 to 2000 while the gross domestic product of Norway, in constant value of money, increased more than sixfold over that period.90 Without a drastic decline in the number of fishermen their incomes could not possibly have increased on par with other groups in Norway. In fact their number declined by 80 percent and their revenues per capita rose tenfold (Figure 2). This does not necessarily mean that their personal incomes rose tenfold as well; fishing costs may have risen even faster than the revenues, but it is certainly likely that their incomes have kept pace with the rest of society, and perhaps done better than that.
Figure 1. Number of fishermen (full-time and part-time) and the value of the fish catches in Norway
Source: Statistics Norway: Fishery Statistics
The fact that the value of the catch has roughly doubled since 1950 contradicts the above assumption that the production of fish cannot be increased because the productivity of nature is fully utilized. The increase in the value of catches is due to the fishing of previously unexploited or only lightly exploited stocks, as we shall return to below. It is not due to a rising price of fish relative to other goods. Since 1963, the earliest year for which an index of ex-vessel fish prices is available, this price index has varied between 70 and 125 percent of the consumer price index with a common base year (1994) and was highest in 1963, while in 1998 and 1999 it was about seven percent higher than the consumer price index. But even if the limited productivity of nature has not been a strictly binding constraint over the entire period considered there is a point at which it will become so, and that point may already have been reached.
Figure 2. The value of the catch per fisherman (full-time and part-time) in Norway
Source: Statistics Norway: Fishery Statistics
Figure 3. Indices of catch value, capital stock, labor, and resources available, in the Norwegian Fisheries
Sources: Statistics Norway and (stocks) ICES. For definition of the index of resources, see Appendix.
How has it been possible not just to maintain but to increase the value of catches despite a dramatic fall in the use of labour? Is it due to substitution of capital for labour, increased availability of resources, or what? Figure 3 provides an answer to that. The figure shows the development of total catch value, use of labour, the stock of capital, and the availability of resources, since 1960.91 The input of labour has fallen relentlessly, as already noted. The stock of capital increased, especially after 1970, and peaked in the late 1980s at about twice its 1963 value. In the late 1990s it was, however, not much greater than forty years earlier, and the availability of resources was lower in the 1990s than in 1961. The increased productivity of labour thus is not due to a greater availability of resources, and it is to a lesser extent than one might expect due to a substitution of capital for labour. Instead it is mainly due to a better technology; it is due to the fact that each crone invested in fishing equipment today buys much better equipment than the equivalent amount of money did forty years ago. This will not surprise anyone with some knowledge of the fishing industry, and it will not surprise anyone familiar with the theory of economic growth, which identifies technological progress as the only factor able to sustain economic growth per capita in the long run. The build-up of capital alone quickly runs into diminishing returns, but it is a more intriguing question whether the realization of technological progress does in fact require investment in new equipment replacing the old and outdated one.
The resource availability index warrants some comments in its own right. This index is a weighted sum of indices of abundance for different stocks, the weights being the value shares in the landings from these stocks, at fixed (1999) prices. Note that it may take some time for the stock index to show signs of overexploitation, because it may take some time for the stocks themselves to decline as a result of overexploitation; it is the long term trend that matters. The increased catches in the mid-1990s despite a fall in the resource availability index could prove unsustainable precisely for that reason, and catches did indeed fall in the late 1990s. (For further details on the index, see Appendix.)
3. STOCK FLUCTUATIONS AND SUSTAINABILITY
The stock index discussed above is a weighted sum of indices of several stocks. It is important to note that it has been possible, by switching to previously lightly exploited or unexploited stocks, to avoid as large variations in the value of fish landings as have occurred for single, important stocks. One such case is the switch that occurred from herring to capelin after the collapse of the Atlanto-Scandian92 and North Sea herring stocks in the early 1970s. Both these fisheries were conducted by the same boats. As Figure 4 shows, the catches of Barents Sea capelin replaced the catches of Norwegian spring spawning herring in the 1970s and early 1980s. In part this may amount to exploiting the productivity of nature in different ways. The growth conditions for Barents Sea capelin probably improved after the collapse of the Norwegian spring spawning herring, making it possible to catch more of this fish than before. A similar effect may be observed for Arctic shrimp and the Arcto-Norwegian cod. The stock and catches of shrimp fluctuate in a way contrary to the Arcto-Norwegian cod, smoothing the variations in the total value of landings (Figure 5). This last effect is reminiscent of what has happened at Newfoundland. The much noted collapse of the Northern cod has been accompanied by an increased and not decreased value of landings, due to increased landings of high valued crab whose growth conditions have improved simultaneously with and perhaps as a result of the cod collapse (Figure 6).
These last comments raise the question what are sustainable fisheries really about? Are we trying to sustain revenues from fishing? If so, perhaps we need not worry too much about temporary collapses in individual stocks; all stocks do not collapse simultaneously, and when one stock goes down another goes up and compensates for the revenue loss from the first. And if we are trying to sustain individual stocks we should be prepared for unpleasant surprises. Fish stocks fluctuate partly for environmental reasons that we can do absolutely nothing about but have to live with as best we can. The collapses of the Atlanto-Scandian herring is generally believed to have been triggered by overfishing, but it coincided with an unfavourable (for the herring) change in the oceanographic regime (Figure 7). Similar arguments have been advanced for the Northern cod. This is not to say that overfishing was no part of the problem; it may, as stated, have precipitated and/or deepened the collapse and delayed a recovery of the stocks (an event that is yet to happen for the Northern cod).
Figure 4. Stock and Norwegian landings of Atlanto-Scandian herring and Barents Sea capelin
Source: ICES.
Figure 5. Stock and Norwegian catches of Northeast Arctic cod and Barents Sea shrimp
Source: ICES
Figure 6. Quantity and value of fish catches in Newfoundland
Source: Canada Fisheries and Oceans
Figure 7. Spawning stock biomass of Atlanto-Scandian (Norwegian spring spawning) herring and 19-years moving average of temperature in the Barents Sea (the Kola section)
Source: Toresen and Østvedt (2000)
4. SUBSIDIES AND SUSTAINABILITY
Over the years, fisheries subsidies have acquired a bad reputation, both among economists and others. Theory is unambiguous on the consequences of subsidies in open access fisheries; they will increase fleet capacity and fishing effort and aggravate the depletion of fish stocks. But not all fisheries are open access fisheries; more and more fisheries are subject to some control; either fish quotas or restrictions on the activities of the fishing fleet.
The consequences of subsidies are less obvious under such control regimes. If these controls are tight enough the effects of subsidies on fishing capacity and the decimation of fish stocks could be small. Subsidies explicitly given to reducing fishing capacity could in fact reduce overcapacity and possibly also overfishing. Subsidies to decommissioning of fishing vessels would not be very effective if the money could be diverted to investment in new vessels, or if they cause industry players to be less risk averse, in the expectation that they will always be bailed out. But provided the controls are tight enough and the message that this is a once and for all thing gets across; such subsidies could be effective in reducing the overcapacity of fleets. Whether they are otherwise a wise use of the taxpayer’s money is another issue which will not be addressed here.
The Norwegian government was for a number of years rather generous with subsidies to its fishing industry, so let us take a look at the consequences. An analysis of the effect on fish stocks remains to be done but it is straightforward to provide an overall picture of the effect on investment, man-years of work, and the value added in the industry. These are shown in Figures 8–10. It is not unreasonable to expect a continued program of subsidies that nevertheless may vary from one year to the next to affect investment and employment with some time delay, and that the effects will be stronger the longer the subsidy program lasts. The figures comparing subsidies, investment and change in employment (Figures 8 and 9) therefore show three-year moving averages. For subsidies and investment there appears to be, if anything, a negative correlation. For employment change and subsidies there appears to be some positive correlation up to about 1990, but after that the subsidy program was virtually abolished. This leads to the conclusion that the subsidies had some affect on employment, i.e., slowing down the reduction in employment, but little or no effect on investment. The latter effect is indeed surprising. There were some controls of investment in fishing boats in Norway up until the 1980s, in the form of controls on loans from the Government Bank for Fisheries, but it was nevertheless possible to finance the building of fishing boats through private banks.
Figure 8. Fisheries subsidies and investment in fishing equipment in Norway
Source: Statistics Norway
Figure 9. Fisheries subsidies and change in man-years of labour in Norway’s fisheries
Source: Statistics Norway
Figure 10 compares subsidies and the value added in the fishing industry. For a brief period in the 1970s and the early 1980s the fisheries subsidies reached the ridiculous level of about 90 percent of value added in the industry. In this period there was also a positive relationship between the subsidies and value added in the industry. As the subsidies were wound down there was for some years a weak relationship between the subsidies and the total value added, but in the 1990s the value added has increased handsomely despite the fact that that the subsidies have virtually disappeared. One should of course be careful about drawing the conclusion that the value added in the industry (which includes a part of the subsidies) varies inversely with the level of subsidies, but what this shows is that it is quite possible to abolish subsidies and to improve the economic conditions in the industry within a relatively brief period of time.
Figure 10. Subsidies and value added in the fisheries of Norway
Source: Statistics Norway
5. DECOMMISSIONING OF FISHING VESSELS
One reason why there is little or no detectable relationship between the level of subsidies and the investment in the industry could be that from the late 1970s a substantial amount of the subsidies was given to decommissioning of fishing vessels. In the period 1979–95 over one billion kroner was granted to decommissioning and structural adjustments involving destruction of fishing vessels, selling vessels to buyers in foreign countries, or removing them from specific fisheries. Over the same period the total amount of subsidies was more than ten times as large (over 13 billion kroner), so the share of decommissioning in the total was not overly large. The decommissioning subsidies were nevertheless quite effective in improving the profitability of the purse seine fleet, which received about half of the total. For other fisheries where these measures were applied the effect on profitability is less clear, but the decommissioning subsidies did achieve some reduction in fleet capacity there as well.
The reasons why the decommissioning subsidies were effective in the purse seine fishery are several. One is that this fishery is controlled by individual vessel quotas and the total catch by overall quotas. Therefore, a larger capacity of the fishing fleet does not automatically mean greater effort and larger fish catches, but it can be argued that a large excess capacity of the fishing fleet will put a pressure on the authorities to increase fish quotas and improve vessel utilization and profits in the short term. Conversely, in a situation like this, vessel decommissioning does not mean less fishing effort and fish catches but a better utilization of the fishing fleet and higher profits.
Another reason why the decommissioning subsidies worked was that the fleet was controlled through fishing concessions specifying the cargo capacity of each individual vessel.93 It was not possible, therefore, to use the decommissioning subsidies to buy a new or a larger boat unless an equivalent boat was removed from the fishery. Those who scrapped or sold their boats out of the fishery were allowed to sell their concessions to other boatowners. This made it possible to replace small vessels with larger and more effective ones, without changing the total capacity of the fleet measured in cargo capacity. By buying the concession capacity of a small boat and adding to one’s own, a boatowner could acquire a larger boat. Since the vessel quotas were determined on the basis of the vessel’s concession capacity, it was possible to increase one’s share of the total permitted catch by buying an additional concession for cargo capacity and acquire a larger vessel.94 Although the vessel quota did not increase in proportion to the increase in cargo capacity, purchasing a concession was still profitable, as the costs did not increase in proportion with the size of the vessel. Another factor that contributed to increasing the quota shares of the vessels was that the government withdrew the concessions of some of the boats it bought for decommissioning, thereby reducing the total cargo capacity of the fleet.
Figure 11. Number of purse seiners with concessions in Norway, according to cargo capacity (hl)
Source: Statistics Norway
Figure 12. Total cargo capacity of the Norwegian purse seine fleet subject to concessions
Source: Statistics Norway
Figures 11–14 illustrate how this worked. First, let us take a look at the structural changes and the total capacity of the fleet. The number of the smallest boats fell quite rapidly after the decommissioning program was initiated in 1979 while the number of the largest type of vessels has increased (Figure 11). The total capacity of the fleet, measured in volume (hectolitres) of cargo capacity, also fell rapidly over the ten year period 1979–89 and has since stayed relatively constant after that, due to withdrawal of licenses of retired boats (Figure 12).
Figure 13. Wage potential per vessel for three groups of vessels, over and under 8000 hl concession capacity and those with concessions for blue whiting
Source: Statistics Norway
Figure 14. Catches of pelagic fish in Norway
Source: Statistics Norway and Directorate of Fisheries
The effect on profitability was not immediate. As Figure 13 shows, the “wage potential”95 per boat of the purse seine fleet languished at a rather low level until about 1990, after the main structural adjustment had taken place. The “wage potential” is a measure of profitability; it is the remainder after all costs except labour costs have been subtracted from revenues. Ideally it should be calculated as per man-year and compared with the wage rate in other industries, but data on man-years expended on the fishing fleet are not readily available. It can be stated, however, that the largest purse seiners do not require many more people than the smaller ones, which is one reason for their greater profitability.
Figure 14 indicates why it took so long for the decommissioning program to bear fruit in terms of improved profitability. The total catches of pelagic fish, the species taken by the purse seiners, declined both in quantity and value from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. The structural adjustment therefore did not initially do much better than compensate for a decline that the fleet would have suffered if its size and structure had remained the same. After 1990 the total catches of pelagic fish have increased handsomely, both in quantity and value. The wage potential per boat has increased in a similar fashion; the concession system has effectively barred investment in new fishing boats unless others of a corresponding size are removed.
6. CONCLUSION
What are the lessons we can learn from the Norwegian experience? The overall picture is one not just of a sustainable fishing industry but of an industry that grew over the latter part of the 20thcentury. The growth was, however, largely confined to just a few years in the 1960s, and since then we have seen alternating periods of decline and recovery. Major structural changes took place in the industry in the latter half of the 20thcentury, and there was a strong and largely uninterrupted decline in employment. Without that decline the industry would not have been able to hold its own vis-à-vis other industries in a growing economy with a strong increase in productivity and labor income.
The challenges that the ongoing rise in productivity and wages in the rest of the economy posed for the fishing industry appeared in the mid-1950s and became increasingly difficult as the years went by. This is what gave rise to the fisheries subsidies; these were originally intended to tidy the industry over temporary problems, but instead they became institutionalized and quasi-permanent.96 The subsidies did not offer any long term solution to the profitability problems of the industry, instead they became more aggravated. The broader lesson to be learned from this is that subsidies are in no way a solution to the problems of productivity that beset a fishing industry caught between the demands for rising incomes in a growing economy and the limited productivity of nature. Needless to say, subsidies may maintain incomes, as long as the taxpayers put up with them, but they do not solve the problems of the industry; on the contrary they most likely prevent or slow down the structural changes necessary. The fishing industry survives by selling its products in competition with other industries producing food, including fishing industries in other countries, and in order to do so it must stay competitive. This can be a challenge for fishing industries in economies with rising incomes and fish resources that are fully used.
That said, if we look for deleterious effects of the fisheries subsidies in Norway, we find less than we would expect. There is some evidence that they slowed down the decline in employment in the industry. This was undoubtedly intended, but whether that was well taken is another story. The effect on investment is less clear than one might think. To some extent this latter effect may be due to the fact that the subsidies were in part directed towards reducing the fishing fleet. This was effective in some fisheries. The precondition was a reasonable control over the entry of vessels. This control probably was the reason why the subsidies had less harmful effects than one would have expected. The effect of the subsidies on the fish stocks remains to be investigated, however. This task is made difficult by the fact that Norway shares virtually all its stocks with the neighbouring countries, and so what happens to the stocks depends only partly on what Norway does on its own.
Another thing we have seen is how depleted stocks were replaced by other, previously less exploited stocks. The herring fishery was replaced by the capelin fishery and the mackerel fishery. Perhaps this was fortuitous. Will there be other stocks to go to if the present ones collapse? We do not know, but probably not. The collapse of the herring stocks was in all probability caused by overfishing, made possible by a technological leap in fishing. The management structure to take advantage of that technological improvement rather than to let it wreak havoc with the stocks was simply not in place at the time; this was a decade or so before the exclusive economic zones came into being, and even if the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commissions already existed at the time the willingness to reign in the herring fishery was not there until the stocks had virtually collapsed. It can be argued that the herring collapses were a necessary learning process, and in that case probably a costly one. Even so, disputes over herring and other pelagic stocks in the Northeast Atlantic are still a fact; agreements on the Norwegian spring spawning herring are in the habit of breaking down, and no agreement has been reached for the blue whiting fishery. These failures are not just due to the fact that these stocks migrate between the economic zones of different countries, they are also, and probably to a greater extent, caused by the fact that these stocks can also be caught in what is left of the open sea outside 200 miles. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the exclusive economic zone for reaching agreements on fisheries management. Indeed it can be argued that a further extension of that zone and the associated closure of all loopholes is the most pressing reform at the international level to improve fisheries management.
The herring collapse coincided with a marked change in ocean temperatures in the Northeast Atlantic, just as the collapse of the Northern cod coincided with a fall in the temperature on the Grand Banks. While there seems little doubt that both stocks were overfished, the adverse climatic changes are likely to have contributed to the collapse. Herring has in any case always been a capricious fish; herring booms and busts have occurred throughout history, and given the primitive technology of the past it is difficult to find other reasons than climate change or other environmental effects beyond human control. More generally, we have to live with the fact that fish stocks fluctuate for reasons that have nothing to do with human activities. In the face of such variations it will in many if not most cases be impossible to maintain a steady catch from individual stocks, except at ridiculously low levels. What, then, does sustainable fishing mean? That the existence of stocks not be endangered by fishing? That we maintain the revenues obtainable from any given ecosystem (if we can delimit any such in a meaningful way) by changing the utilization of stocks as the natural conditions vary? Or is it a convenient slogan for those who would preserve the oceans as pristine wilderness and send the fishermen packing?
APPENDIX
THE RESOURCE INDEX
The resource index has been calculated by summing the indices of the levels of the most important fish stocks exploited by the Norwegian fishing fleet, weighted by the share of these stocks in the value of landings for these stocks each year at 1999 prices. The stocks included are the following: Northeast Arctic cod, Northeast Arctic haddock, Northeast Arctic saithe, Northeast Arctic capelin, Norwegian spring spawning herring, Redfish (sebastes marinus and sebastes mentella), Greenland halibut, Northeast Arctic shrimp, blue whiting, mackerel, and North Sea herring. These stocks probably cover about 80 percent of the value of the Norwegian fish landings, but it is a bit difficult to tell exactly, because the landings from one particular stock are not always equal to the landings of that particular species, as more than one stock of a given species are sometimes fished (Northeast arctic cod versus North Sea cod, Barents Sea capelin versus Icelandic capelin, Barents Sea shrimp versus Greenland shrimp, etc.).
For some of the stocks (redfish, blue whiting, capelin, Greenland halibut and shrimp) the time series do not cover the entire period. The main reason for this is that these stocks were only lightly or not at all exploited early on in the period considered. The resource index therefore jumps upwards in the year the stock figures become available. The implication is that extending fisheries to previously lightly exploited resources means an extension of the resource base, even if the stocks as such existed prior to that. The indices for the capelin and shrimp stocks have been smoothed to reflect the gradual developments of this fishery over the period prior to the appearance of the stock estimates (1965–72 for capelin, 1970–81 for shrimp). The stock figures for mackerel 1961–71 reflect only North Sea mackerel).
REFERENCES
Hannesson, R. 1996. Fisheries Mismanagement. Fishing News Books, Oxford.
Toresen, R. & Østvedt, O.J. 2000. Variation in abundance of Norwegian spring-spawning herring (Clupea harengus, Clupeidae) throughout the 20thcentury and the influence of climatic fluctuations. Fish and Fisheries, Vol. 1, pp. 231–256.
Vilhjálmsson, H. 1997. Climatic Variations and Some Examples of Their Effects on the Marine Ecology of Icelandic and Greenlandic Waters, in Particular During the Present Century. Rit Fiskideildar, Vol. 15, No. 1, Marine Research Institute, Reykjavík, pp. 8–29.
90 Calculated from historical statistics available on the website of Statistics Norway (www.ssb.no).
96 The Norwegian fisheries subsidies are discussed at greater length in Hannesson (1996).
