Economic Value
"The Sargasso Sea is... economically important, contributing significantly to the economies of Bermuda and other countries throughout the region."
"The economic importance of the Sargasso Sea to both local and global economies is considerable and made up of direct exploitation and indirect benefits accruing from ecosystem services.
The most obvious source of direct economic value is from fisheries. Many of the commercially important fish species caught in the Sargasso Sea are exploited by both local and international fisheries. In Bermuda pelagic species like wahoo and yellowfin tuna dominate the local commercial fishery and make up approximately half of the total annual landings valued at around US$ 1.5 million per annum over the past decade (Bermuda Department of Environmental Protection 2011, pers.comm).
Global fisheries data used here are taken primarily from the FAO data base supplemented by the Sea Around Us Project (www.seaaroundus.org/) and the methods used in subsequent analysis are described in a specially commissioned report (Sumaila, Vats and Swartz 2011, unpublished). Fish landings from the Sargasso Sea increased from the 1950 to the 1980s, and then stabilized until the early 1990s when they began to decline (Figure 22), but there are wide annual fluctuations in both catches and landed values perhaps because fishers use the Sargasso Sea as a fall back when they fail to meet their targets elsewhere. The greatest values and largest catches are taken from High Seas areas in the western Sargasso Sea with much smaller catches from the Bermuda and Bahamas EEZs (Figure 23). Taking into account the landed values, the cost of fishing and subsidies, and then using appropriate multipliers for the economic impact of the fishery, the values in terms of resource rents (the surplus after costs have been deducted from landing value), household income and economic impact generated directed or indirectly by fisheries from the Sargasso Sea are, respectively, $36 million, $50 million and $171 million per year based on 2005 figures (Sumaila et al, 2011, unpublished).
Extrapolations from the FAO dataset indicate that Venezuela, Mexico, the U.S. and Japan are currently the most active fishing fleets in the Sargasso Sea with Mexico currently showing the largest landed value (Figure 22, Sumaila et al. 2011, unpublished). However, the high values reported from Mexico and Venezuela result from significant catches in the coastal Spanish mackerel fishery, which influenced the results of the final extrapolation, and not because of catches in the Sargasso Sea. The United States and Japan currently have the largest fishing fleets within the High Seas of the Sargasso Sea. In terms of fishing gear, gillnets and longlines are most frequently used to catch fish in the Sargasso Sea, other gears include purse seines, traps and driftnets.
In addition there are fisheries for the two eel species that are dependent upon the Sargasso Sea for their spawning grounds.... The European eel is critically endangered (Dekker 2003, ICES 2010) and the American eel is presently being considered for listing under the US Endangered Species Act. As described earlier, the decline in both European eel recruitment and harvestable eels could be as high as 99% in some areas (Gollock, Curnick and Debney 2011). It is estimated that around 11,000 tonnes of eel that originate from the Sargasso Sea are caught each year in North America and Europe. This generates resource rent of about $36 million a year. The resultant household income and economic impacts are estimated at over $60 million and $360 million a year respectively. These numbers, though impressive, are lower than their potential given the current depleted state of eel stocks in these countries (Sumaila et al. 2011, unpublished).
Other fish that are dependent upon the Sargasso Sea and which are harvested inhabit the Bermuda reefs. Reef fishing and recreational fishing for both offshore and reef fish (including lobsters) has an estimated value at 2007 prices of $5 million to Bermuda (Beukering, Sarkis, McKenzie, Hess, Brander, Roelfsema, Looijenstijn, van der Putten and Bervoets 2010) and the role of the Sargassum weed and reefs as nursery areas for commercial fish will have an additional but currently unquantified value.
The economic and biological importance of Sargassum to recreational and commercial fishing extends well beyond the boundaries of the Sargasso Sea. As rafts of Sargassum drift with the currents in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, through the Florida Straits and up the east coast of the United States by way of the Gulf Stream, they provide critical habitat for species of fish that are targeted by the recreational and commercial fishing industries. The success of the recreational charter fishing industry in any one year in the Florida Keys can be measured against the quantity and quality of the drifting rafts of Sargassum in the Straits of Florida. The importance of Sargassum as an Essential Fish Habitat was recognized by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council in 2002 when they developed a Fishery Management Plan to protect and conserve Sargassum in a portion of the EEZ of the United States (South Atlantic Fishery Management Council 2002). The environmental and economic importance of Sargassum is only realized and recognized by some when it is no longer present.
Other values come from more indirect uses. Ecotourism is important to the region and is dependent upon some of the iconic and threatened species that live there. The annual migration of humpback whales past Bermuda supports local whale watching (Stone et al. 1987). Humpback whales are also the basis of whale watching around the Caribbean, and it has been estimated that whale watching in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines is worth over $22 million annually across the region (O’Connor, Campbell, Cortez and Knowles 2009). The numbers get even larger off New England where Stellwagen Bank whale watching accounts for 80% of a total income of $126 million. Many of the humpbacks watched off Stellwagen have migrated there from Bermuda (see Section 3).
Turtles also draw eco-tourists to the Caribbean, and the four species of turtle that use the Sargasso Sea as a nursery area and as part of their migration routes support turtle watching tourism in Antigua, Costa Rica, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and the Gulf and Southeastern states of the United States, including Puerto Rico. Bird watching is also popular throughout the Caribbean and, although the role of migratory seabirds in bringing tourists to the region has not been quantified, the seabirds that use the Sargasso Sea contribute to the diversity of birdlife found in the region.
A recent study (Beukering et al. 2010) has estimated the Total Economic Value (TEV) of Bermuda’s coral reefs by bringing together values for coral reef associated tourism, reef associated fisheries (referred to earlier), impacts on real estate, the provision of physical coastal protection, the provision of reef associated cultural and recreational values, and existing research and educational values. Based on 2007 values the authors estimate an annual TEV of the reef system to Bermuda as $722 million representing about 12% of Bermuda’s GDP. As the authors’ comment “preserving the coral reefs…in Bermuda pays off in the economic sense”. Clearly the well-being of Bermuda’s reefs depends in part on the well-being of the ocean surrounding Bermuda.
More broadly, two global studies of values from ecosystems have been published. The first, by Costanza, d’Arge, de Groot, Farber, Grasso, Hannon, Limburg, Naeem, O’Neill, Paruelo, Raskin, Sutton and Van den Belt (1997) had a profound impact on how ecosystem services were considered, as it brought worldwide awareness to the fact that humans receive a host of valuable benefits from the environment, even if these are not traded in the market. The second (de Groot, Kumar, van der Ploog and Sukhdev 2010) introduced the concept of “the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity” (TEEB).
De Groot et al (2010) estimated the economic value per hectare per year of various biomes including the open ocean. Multiplying these estimates by the area of the Sargasso Sea (41,515 hectares-see p8, Figure 1) Sumalia et al. (2011, unpublished), estimate that the indirect use value from the Sargasso Sea is over US$ 2.7 billion per year .... The definitions of the various categories are given by de Groot et al(2010), but climate regulation is the balance and maintenance of the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans by living marine organisms; conservation of genetic diversity is preventing the loss of genetic diversity; moderation of extreme events includes hurricanes and tsunamis; nutrient cycling is the enhancement of ecological re-cycling; and the final two categories are water purification and waste management, and the (ocean’s) role as a habitat/nursery. The highest value is attributed to water purification (US $1.4 billion), followed by nutrient cycling at about $0.8 billion (de Groot et al. 2010).
It is difficult to reconcile these various economic analyses with each other, and also difficult to evaluate the reality of some of the large estimates of economic values, but it is clear that the Sargasso Sea, both in the open ocean and the inshore environment around Bermuda contributes significantly to global and local economies. These various data and estimates emphasise the need for precautionary management to protect and maintain current values and to restore those areas of the ecosystem that are less than optimal, so that the Sargasso Sea can continue to provide these ecosystem services for future generations."
Above is an excerpted text (pages 30-32). When referenced this report should be referred to as:
Laffoley, D.d’A., Roe, H.S.J., Angel, M.V., Ardron, J., Bates, N.R, Boyd, I.L., Brooke, S., Buck, K.N., Carlson, C.A., Causey, B., Conte, M.H., Christiansen, S., Cleary, J., Donnelly, J., Earle, S.A., Edwards, R., Gjerde, K.M., Giovannoni, S.J., Gulick, S., Gollock, M., Hallett, J., Halpin, P., Hanel, R., Hemphill, A., Johnson, R.J., Knap, A.H., Lomas, M.W., McKenna, S.A., Miller, M.J., Miller, P.I., Ming, F.W., Moffitt, R., Nelson, N.B., Parson, L., Peters, A.J., Pitt, J., Rouja, P., Roberts, J., Roberts, J., Seigel, D.A., Siuda, A.N.S., Steinberg, D.K., Stevenson, A., Sumaila, V.R., Swartz, W., Thorrold, S., Trott, T.M., and V. Vats. 2011. The protection and management of the Sargasso Sea: The golden floating rainforest of the Atlantic Ocean. Summary Science and Supporting Evidence Case.Sargasso Sea Alliance, 44 pp. Click here to download full report PDF which includes figures mentioned above.