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Local, regional and global markets: what drives the tuna fisheries?

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Abstract

Tuna products are amongst the most popular seafoods in the world and widely traded across the globe. Their global trade developed at a very early stage in the growth and development of tuna fisheries. In this article, recent evolutions of tuna markets in terms of products (for both sashimi and cannery-grade tuna products), market structures, and trade are introduced followed by a comprehensive study of global integration through price linkages. Most studies show a high degree of market integration and competition through prices at the world-wide level. Finally, we introduce some original results about the relationship between catches and prices (estimated coefficients of demand elasticity and flexibility), and provide answers to a few key questions for tuna fisheries and markets, including: How do consumers respond to price changes? Are fish price changes fully transmitted to consumers? Is there any economic incentive for fishers to comply with reduced catch quotas? Do fishers target particular tuna species according to the relative price of tuna species?

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Fig. 1

Source: FAO

Fig. 2

Source: Campling et al. (2007)

Fig. 3

Source: Thailand Customs

Fig. 4

Source IMF

Fig. 5

Source: Japanese Ministry of fisheries and Japanese Customs

Fig. 6

Sources: National customs in Thailand and Spain, Ministry of fisheries in Japan, Globefish (Abidjan and Dakar markets)

Fig. 7

Source: Globefish, cited in Miyake et al. (2010), p. 109

Fig. 8

Source: FFA Trade News and US Energy Information Administration

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Notes

  1. The list of MSC-certified tuna fisheries can be found on: https://www.msc.org.

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation and is funded through Coupled Natural and Human systems project called Fishscape under NSF Grant No. CNH-1010280, the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), under grant CEP (changements environnementaux planétaires) MACROES (ANR-09-CEP-003) and the international project MADE (Mitigating the Adverse Ecological Impact of Fishing, funded by the European Commission under the 7th Research Framework Programme). We also acknowledge the community-building support of CLIOTOP (Climate Impact on Oceanic Top Predators) and IMBER (Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research, Human Dimension Working Group). The results are not necessarily those of the National Marine Fisheries Service, nor of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Finally, we are grateful to Richard Brill for his effective editing job on this article, and to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments to improve the article. Any remaining mistake would be ours.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LEMNA, Université de Nantes, Chemin de la Censive du Tertre, 44322, Nantes Cedex 3, France

    Patrice Guillotreau

  2. NMFS and UCSD, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, 8604 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92037-1508, USA

    Dale Squires

  3. Gulf of Maine Research Institute, 350 Commercial Street, Portland, ME, 04101, USA

    Jenny Sun

  4. Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, 8604 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA

    Guillermo A. Compeán

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  1. Patrice Guillotreau
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  2. Dale Squires
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  4. Guillermo A. Compeán
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Correspondence to Patrice Guillotreau.

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Guillotreau, P., Squires, D., Sun, J. et al. Local, regional and global markets: what drives the tuna fisheries?. Rev Fish Biol Fisheries 27, 909–929 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11160-016-9456-8

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