Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting for Commercial Exploitation of Wild Fish Stocks

The paper discusses a compilation of economic accounts for wild fish stocks. The methods proposed in the System of National Accounting (SNA) satellite system and the System for Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) are discussed and their usefulness is assessed through examples. The paper proposes some methods for estimating the value of commercially exploited fish stocks and the cost of exploiting them. It also uses data on some important fish stocks in Icelandic waters to give examples of results and indicate the degree of uncertainty involved in the estimations. The values of the fish stocks are estimated by using the prices of share quotas and by using direct estimations of the sum of discounted expected future profits.