There are few places in the world where the extension of national jurisdiction over fishery resources has as much significance as along the northern coast of West Africa. In this region, extending from the Republic of Guinea to Morocco (see Fig. 1), annual catches are over 2.5 million metric tons, producing a gross revenue on the order of US$ 900 million. Furthermore, in view of the fact that several of the high valued stocks in the region could produce higher yields with lower amounts of effort, the potential gross revenues could be well over a billion dollars with total costs considerably lower than they are at present. There is, in short, the potential for the extraction of very large economic benefits by a few coastal states.
The extension of national jurisdiction means a major redistribution of the sea's wealth in fisheries. And, in addition, it means that the coastal states now have the authority to use and manage the stocks and to prevent the biological and economic waste that currently occurs. The task they now face is that of exercising their authority effectively, so that they can achieve the maximum net benefits from the resources. This will require improved information, the formulation and adoption of effective regulations and agreements, the implementation and enforcement of the regulations and agreements, and cooperation among themselves in the distribution of the net benefits from the stocks that they have.
This report discusses some of the elements of the task. It attempts to provide a rough measure of the economic value of the stocks in the northern subregion of CECAF and to give some indications of the amount of economic rents that might be extracted from the use of some of the stocks. Economic rents are loosely defined here as the difference between the total revenues and the total costs that could be achieved with appropriate restrictions on fishing effort. These rents reflect the value of rights of access.
The report also examines a few examples of arrangements that certain of the coastal states have worked out with foreigners and, where possible, attempts to evaluate the costs to the foreigners and the benefits to the coastal states.
Much of the information presented in the report is clearly speculative in nature, because the economic data required for refined analyses is not available. As is evident throughout this report, one the first efforts that should be made is the improvement of the economic data.
