Skip Navigation


ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on April 20, 2009
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2009 66(5):950-959; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp100
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
66/5/950    most recent
fsp100v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Mumford, J. D.
Right arrow Articles by Kell, L. T.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Mumford, J. D.
Right arrow Articles by Kell, L. T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2009 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Insurance mechanisms to mediate economic risks in marine fisheries

J. D. Mumford1, A. W. Leach1, P. Levontin1 and L. T. Kell2

1 Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Buckhurst Road, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK
2 Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 OHT, UK

Correspondence to J. D. Mumford: tel: +44 207 5942206; fax: +44 207 5942308; e-mail: j.mumford{at}imperial.ac.uk.

Mumford, J. D., Leach, A. W., Levontin, P., and Kell, L. T. 2009. Insurance mechanisms to mediate economic risks in marine fisheries. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 950–959.

Uncertainty affects the behaviour of fishers and fisheries regulators in a way that can adversely affect the sustainability of fish stocks, fisheries income, and productivity. In agriculture, there has been a long history of using levy funds and public and private insurance schemes to mediate economic risks to growers resulting from environmental variability and quarantine risks. In the United States, the federal government continues to underwrite funds (collected by contracted private agents) that are used to protect contributors from the effects of extreme weather and pest and disease losses. In Europe, there are examples of industry-based mutual funds to mediate risks from exotic agricultural diseases. In agriculture, insurance mechanisms have been successful in reducing risk-inducing behaviour by contractual compliance to risk-reducing codes of practice. For fisheries, insurance may provide a tool to address some elements of uncertainty in a way that would help both the fishing industry and the regulators achieve objectives of sustainability, income security, and productivity. This paper presents a brief review of insurance in agriculture and capture fisheries and uses a stochastic model to illustrate how insurance funds could protect revenue and encourage increased sustainability of fisheries and improve compliance with and enforcement of fisheries regulation. Although insurance may be a partial solution to unsatisfactory fisheries management and fishing performance, some potential challenges to this novel approach are also discussed.

Keywords: capture fishery, feedback dynamics, fisher behaviour, harvest, indemnity, insurance, price, regulation, revenue, risk, sustainability, uncertainty

Received 13 October 2008; accepted 23 March 2009; advance access publication 20 April 2009.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.