Why RecReational Fishing?Recreational fishing has the potential to significantly stimulate economic development with minimal impact on fish stocks and other natural resources. Present in 76 percent of the world’s exclusive eco-nomic zones (Mora and others 2009), estimates for the number of recreational fishers worldwide vary between 220 and 700 million (FAO 2012, World Bank 2012). The World Bank (2012) estimates that these fishers spend >$190 billion annually, contrib-uting about $70 billion per year to global GDP, not counting large revenue streams for fishing tackle. In 2009, US recreational fishing expenditures contributed to the economy $50 billion in sales impacts and $23 bil-lion in value added impacts on a harvested (an estimated 60 percent of fish captured by recreational fishers in the US are released) catch of ∼100,000 tons ($624 per lb) compared to $116 billion in sales impacts and $48 bil-lion in value added impacts on a catch of 4 million tons ($21 per lb) from commercial capture fisheries (NOAA 2011). Foreign anglers visiting Costa Rica in 2008 generated 2.13 percent of that nation’s GDP, $279 million in new capital (compared to $16.6 million from the commercial capture fishery), and 63,000 jobs. Fifty years ago, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico was a poor village supported by a single tuna cannery. To-day, Cabo San Lucas hosts 350,000 foreign anglers annually, who leave behind >$1,800 each (∑=$630 million). These new dollars contribute $652 million to GDP, >24,000 jobs and $245 million in tax rev-enues (Southwick and others 2010). A $9.4 million

RECREATIONAL FISHING FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND CONSERVATION

Objective: Build a coalition for aquatic resource conservation by creating economic opportunities for low-income fishing and tourism-dependent communities in less developed countries.

investment (50 percent from angler excise taxes) in the creation of a recreational fishery in Cedar Creek Lake, Kentucky produced a natural resource with a current NPV of $40.6 million (ROI 488 percent). In Panama, recreational fishers spend $97 million annu-ally, generating $170 million in business-to-business sales within Panama and $3.1 million in new tax rev-enues, contributing $48.4 million to GDP ($562 per visiting angler) and supporting 9,500 Panamanian jobs (Southwick and others 2013).

In addition, participation in recreational fishing cre-ates one of the strongest social and political constitu-encies for environmental education and conservation of aquatic resources (Kearny 1999). Conservation is innate within recreational fishing, as recreational an-glers have a vested interest in conserving the aquatic resources upon which they depend. Recreational anglers work proactively to conserve and enhance

Recreational fishing associations work with local youth, having fun without computers and raising awareness of conservation.

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these resources both indirectly by voting for clean waters, and directly by supporting environmental legis-lation and financing fisheries man-agement. Catch and release fishing is on the rise (Cooke and Cowx 2004). After Oregon’s Diamond Lake trout population crashed in the face of the introduction of a non-native species, the sport fishing community lobbied for and partly financed a $6.2 million restoration (the lake now enjoys 8.5 times more tourists than before its crash, an ROI of >300 percent). Not only is the quality of the fishing related to the ability of local ecosys-tems to produce fish, but fishing is a holistic experience that incorporates nature and that has generated its own artistic genre and literature (which sadly passes occasionally into country music). As H.D. Thoreau once noted: “Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after.”

Only 50 million (∼10 percent) of what we are used to thinking of as recreational fishers are based outside of the OECD. The potential to ex-trapolate the economic and conserva-tion benefits of recreational fishing to developing countries is considerable.

Keys to success

In any given country, the magnitude of the economic multiplier that trans-lates dollars spent by sport fishers into local economic development depends heavily on the degree to which local businesses can supply relevant goods and services. In the US, the average multiplier of dollars spent fishing to growth of GDP is ∼2.6. Multipliers in studied LDCs range from 0.9 to 1.9, leaving significant room for improve-ment. Boat and motor construction

and/or repair; bait and tackle supply and maintenance; construction and servicing of marinas, docks and build-ings; vehicles, fuel and transportation infrastructure; airline and airport services; restaurants and lodging; souvenirs and curios; and guiding are among the numerous local economic opportunities created by the sport fishing industry. In addition, recre-ational fishing adds to mixed activity vacation venues attracting tourists and families with multiple interests.

Individual sport fishing businesses succeed on the basis of the quality of the fishable resource, the quality of the ancillary experience of nature, acces-sibility (including visas and logistical information), security, comfort and well-directed marketing that matches the venue to the needs of various types of fishers. Good business plans are crucial.

Equally important is a stable working arrangement with the communities who share access to the terrestrial and aquatic resources upon which a suc-cessful sport fishing venture ultimate-ly depends. Title or long-term leasing arrangements for lodges, coastal zone access for docks and quotas or other methods for partitioning of the fish stocks are needed. Examples of suc-cessful negotiations between sport and commercial capture fisheries can be found in Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Cuba. For example, the Guatemala Sport Fishing Association and the Club Nautico de Guatemala worked with commercial fishermen in the local communities to construct a series of artificial reefs to create an inshore fishery for local income and food security while reducing pressure on off-shore billfish of interest to sport fishing tourists. In Cayo Largo, an

island off the south coast of Cuba, local fishers elected to allocate the entire inshore fishery to recreational use, and have devised spatial planning and enforcement measures designed to ensure the long-term health of the fishery and the entirely local busi-nesses that depend upon it.

To capture the conservation benefits of recreational fishing, local owner-ship and participation are critical. It is often those who take up the sport in their youth and witness first-hand how fisheries change with environmental deterioration who be-come the greatest advocates for wise stewardship. Globally, a growing and better-educated middle class is be-coming increasingly aware of the eco-logical consequences of unrestrained development, and sport fishers, fishing clubs, and lobbying groups are often at the forefront of these movements.

habitat is cRitical

Habitat health needs to be at the core of any effort to develop recreational fisheries. Without a healthy fishery based on healthy habitats the effort will fail. Healthy habitat is not only essential for a healthy fishery, but is also an essential part of the fishing experience. Prior to any investment, an assessment of a location’s suitabil-ity as a fishery center should answer key questions about the resilience of the habitat:

• Are the fish species in a location suitable for a catch-and-release fishery?

• Are there foreseeable threats to habitats that would endanger the long-term health of the fishery?

• Are there appropriate controls on development/habitat conver-

sion to ensure that creation of a recreational fishery will not re-sult in damage to habitat?

• Have the habitats and fishing ar-eas been adequately mapped to allow evaluation of fishery po-tential, monitoring of fishery ca-pacity, and evaluation of fishery health?

• Have other uses (e.g., jet skis) been identified and mapped to assess how a recreational fishery might come into conflict?

• To what extent will increased recreational fishing create pres-sures on other resources (e.g., harvest of fish for restaurants, environmental impacts of infra-structure, cultural pressures)?

• Does a platform exist for dia-logue with local government and communities to work through issues?

Near-shore coastal habitats that are most accessible to people are likewise most threatened by activities that cause habitat loss and degradation. Coastal areas are also most suitable to local-scale catch and release fisheries that attract recreational anglers/eco-tourists. These fisheries may be more suitable to cottage-industry levels of development rather than large scale

(resort) development. Fly-fishing and other specialist anglers spend consid-erably more than other tourists and thus create higher economic impact with lower environmental impacts.

Most fish species either have small home ranges that allow for specif-ic conservation area delineations, known and predictable movements/migrations that allow spatiotemporal conservation measures or a combi-nation. By protecting the habitats required by the different life stages of sport fish, habitats also important to other species (that might also be economically important) are also protected. Although not necessarily small in spatial scale, conservation areas appropriate for coastal fisheries are finite and can be addressed with reasonable conservation measures, compared to open ocean fisheries. These areas are generally easier to assess/monitor/evaluate/access at all levels:

• Project assessment• User rights• Monitoring and evaluation• Habitat protection• Relevance of local knowledge• Specific conservation regulations• Enforcement.

inteRvening FoR the PooR

To make recreational fishing work for poverty alleviation and conservation, a global analysis should elaborate a series of success and failure case studies to describe an enabling environment to policy makers and develop business planning guidelines for the private sector, leading to the identification of pilot sites in which investors could engage to translate the knowledge gained into profitable recreational fishing investments. Consultation with leading sport fishing organizations identified the following as practical activities that could be considered for implementa-tion in selected pilot sites:

• Sponsor international and local sport fishing tournaments

• Implement SME business de-velopment to provide material and services

• Fish-out operations to simulate local interest

• Credit facilities• Youth outreach programs, espe-

cially to encourage conservation• Negotiate airline deals + dis-

counts on tackle• Market studies and advertising

campaigns• Expedition guarantees/trip in-

surance/guide and venue certi-fication

• Negotiate access arrangements with local fishing communities

• Simplify and professionalize permitting process (revenues, data collection)

• Organize peer review of lodges• Cross-site visits

Opportunities exist to expand the importance of recreational fishing in less developed countries.

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• Training in catch-and-release fishing techniques and conserva-tion methods/objectives

• Professional programs for guides, lodge managers, and others

• Make gear more available (rent-al, maintenance)

• Programming for local media• Develop baseline monitoring

and evaluation system for eco-nomic and conservation impacts.

ResouRces

Cisneros-Montemayor and U.R. Su-maila. 2010. “A global estimate of benefits from ecosystem-based ma-rine recreation: potential impacts and implications for management.” Journal of Bioeconomics 12:245–268.

Cooke, S.J., and I.G. Cowx. 2004. “The role of recreational fisher-ies in global fish crises.” BioScience, 54:857-859.

Cowx, I.G., R. Arlinghaus, and S.J. Cooke. 2010. Harmonising recre-ational fisheries and conservation objectives for aquatic biodiversity in inland waters. Journal of Fish Bi-ology 76, 2194-2215.

FAO. 2010. Yearbook of f ishery and aquaculture statistics 2008. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.

FAO. 2011. Recreational fisheries. “Technical guidelines for responsi-ble fisheries 13,” FAO, Rome.

FAO. 2012. The state of world fisheries and aquaculture. FAO, Rome.

Freire, K.M.F. Michel, L. Machado, and D. Crepaldi. 2012. Overview of inland recreational fisheries in Brazil, Fisheries, 37:11, 484-494 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03632415.2012.731867

Instituto de Investigaciones en Cien-cias Economicas. 2010. Analysis of the economic contribution of recre-ational and commercial fisheries to the Costa Rican economy. University of Costa Rica and The Billfish Foun-dation.

Kearny, R.E. 2002. Recreational fish-ing: value is in the eye of the be-holder. In: Pitcher and Holling-worth, eds., Recreational Fisheries; ecological, economic and social evalu-ation. Blackwell Science.

Loftus Consulting and Southwick As-sociates. 2011. “Financial returns to businesses from the Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Program.” Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Washington, DC.

Mora, C., R.A. Myers, M. Coll, and others. 2009. Management effec-tiveness of the world’s marine fish-eries. PLoS Biology, 7(6): e1000131.

Southwick Associates. 2005. “The eco-nomics of recreational and com-mercial striped bass fishing. Strip-ers Forever,” Portland, Maine, USA.

Southwick Associates. 2006. “The rela-tive economic contributions of rec-reational and commercial fisheries.” Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Washington, DC.

Southwick, R., R. Nelson, and J.A. Arean. 2010. “The economic con-tributions of anglers to the Los Cabos economy: quantifying val-ue in a sustainable fishery.” In-terdisciplinary Environmental Re-view, Vol. 11 (1) 69–89.

Southwick Associates. 2012. “On the fence about fishing; why anglers do and don’t fish and what will get them on the water.” American Sportfishing Association, US Fish and Wildlife Service and Associa-tion of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Washington, DC.

Southwick Associates. 2012. “Sport-fishing in America: an economic force for conservation.” American Sportfishing Association, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Associa-tion of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Washington, DC.

Southwick, R.I., R. Nelson, R. Lach-man, and J. Dreyfus. 2013. “Sport-fishing in Panama: size, econom-ic impacts and market potential.” Billfish Foundation, Fort Lauder-dale, Florida, USA.

World Bank. 2012. “Hidden Harvest: the global contribution of capture fisheries.” Report number 66469-GLB. Washington, DC.

For more information or expressions of interest in collaboration contact: RBrummett@worldbank.org