A bioeconomic analysis of Maldivian skipjack tuna fishery

Abstract

Skipjack tuna fishery in the Maldives is the most important and by far the predominant fishery in the country. This fishery is an open access fishery and has been developing over the years. With the technological development fishers have been moving further in search of fish and catch has been increasing steadily. No stock assessment of the exploited tuna stock has been undertaken. Effort data from the Maldivian skipjack tuna fishery from 1985 to 2005 is standardised to a standard year 2005 vessel and standardised effort has together with catch data been used to calculate the parameter values for the Schafer and Fox surplus production models. The parameterised models are used to estimate the reference equilibriums of open access, maximum sustainable yield, maximum economic yield and the solution of social optimum. The analysis indicates that present level of effort in the fishery is close to the level of maximum sustainable yield (of about 100 thousand tonnes), but increase in cost and uncertainties related to recent changes in fishing pattern may show this situation to be unsustainable and cause a reduction in fishing effort under open access. This analysis also suggests that with current cost and price, this fishery may not be biologically overfished.