Aquaculture, fish resources and rural livelihoods

a village CGE analysis from Namibia’s Zambezi Region

verfasst von

Steven Gronau, Etti Winter, Ulrike Grote

Abstract

Aquaculture is widely recognised as a way to reduce malnutrition and poverty. So far, research has mainly focused on Asia, and the few studies available from sub-Saharan Africa are predominantly ex-post partial analyses. By constructing a village computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, we aim to investigate whether aquaculture improves local livelihoods and simultaneously has the potential to counteract local overfishing. We apply this to a rural case study region in Namibia where malnutrition, poverty and fish resource overexploitation are current problems. Our village CGE model shows that aquaculture would be a viable livelihood activity improving household incomes and utility through labour reallocations. Furthermore, aquaculture can counteract malnutrition through increased fish consumption. Higher opportunity costs lead to households leaving the fisheries and switching to aquaculture. These substitution effects offer the possibility of reducing the pressure on local freshwater fish stocks. Policy makers can use the results to introduce aquaculture interventions in rural areas. Our findings indicate that such interventions should take particular account of the poorest households, which are most dependent on fisheries. The derived opportunity costs provide information about payments that are necessary to make policy interventions acceptable for different household groups.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Institut für Umweltökonomik und Welthandel

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Environment, Development and Sustainability

Band

22

Seiten

615-642

Anzahl der Seiten

28

ISSN

1387-585X

Publikationsdatum

02.2020

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Geografie, Planung und Entwicklung, Volkswirtschaftslehre und Ökonometrie, Management, Monitoring, Politik und Recht

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 2 – Kein Hunger

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0212-1 (Zugang: Geschlossen)