The Maximum Sustainable Yield of Artisanal Fishery in Zanzibar: A Cointegration Approach

The objective of this study is to analyze the scope for expanding theartisanal fishery in Zanzibar and to present cointegration as an econometricmethod to estimate the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) in fishery. For thatpurpose the Schaefer and Fox surplus production models are considered.Application of cointegration is discussed to test whether there is atendency to long run equilibrium between catch and effort as assumed bythe surplus production models and implied by the MSY concept. Moreover,estimation of the parameters is dealth with. Application to data relating toartisanal fishery in Zanzibar shows that there is support for a Fox model.Moreover, we find that the current catch is only about 40 percent of theestimated MSY, but the prevalent effort is about two times bigger than theestimated optimum effort. It appears therefore that the fishery in Zanzibaris biologically overfished.