Derby
Crew Member
The Ardent Angler: Sports fishing GDP numbers superior
Jeremy Maynard , Courier-Islander
Published: Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Recently readers of this newspaper may have seen a story reporting on the value and share of farmed salmon of overall seafood production in 2011 in BC. Ardent anglers, and others, may from time to time wonder if such data is compiled about the recreational fishery in this province and by what body. In addition, assuming it was compiled and a person knew where to find it, could such data be considered reliable?
The short answer is a) yes it is compiled b) by a provincial agency, BC Stats and c) as such it should be considered reliable. All this and much more is contained in a recently released report called "British Columbia's Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector, 2012 Edition", available from its home page at www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca .
Normally I'm the kind of guy whose eyes glaze over at the idea of reading economic data but because it involves fish and, more specifically, the sport fishery my interest was sparked to at least take in the general themes. I'm glad I did because there's a good news story for what the province continues to call sport fishing, in contrast to the term recreational fishing now favoured by the federal government.
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The report looks at four sections of the broad fisheries sector in BC, entitled Capture Fisheries, Aquaculture, Fish Processing and the Sport Fishery. It compares the four with each other and over time in a variety of categories. The report acknowledges that "sport fishing is not an industry for which there is a standard definition", ultimately deciding that the "sector was defined to include the sport fishing related activities of establishments that sell directly to anglers."
To use the word in a modern sense, with certain exceptions the metric used in the report is Gross Domestic Product. Described as the value added to the economy by an industry, GDP is calculated by subtracting materials, energy and purchased services from total revenues or output of an industry, valuing the contribution of each on a consistent basis.
As importantly, unless otherwise noted the report is framed in terms of real rather than nominal GDP. This is done to strip out the effects of inflation and so this 2012 report is mostly expressed in what are referred to as "chained 2002 dollars" using a methodology set by Statistics Canada. In language that non-economists like me can understand this provides the basis for an apples to apples comparison between the four fishery sectors.
With that background in mind the report shows the provincial sport fishery, in both fresh and saltwater environments, to be the leader in a number of key areas.
Of an all-sector fisheries GDP of $667.4 million in 2011, sport fishing generated $325.7 million or 48.8% of the total. Perhaps as importantly in a society where the rate of employment (or more usually, un-employment) is an important metric in how it is doing the sport fishery accounted for 8,400 jobs out of an all-fisheries total of 13,900 or approximately 60%.
No surprise then that of the all-sector total paid out in wages of $388.3 million, nearly as high a percentage or $218.9 million was earned in the sport fishery in 2011. Similarly with revenues - of an all-fisheries sector total in 2011 of $2.2 billion, $936 million or about 44% was generated by the sport fishery in BC. The freshwater/saltwater split is assessed at $396 million and $540 million respectively.
In case any sharp-eyed reader was totting up these various sums of money and beginning to think that some of them don't add up, it is important to note that wages and revenues are expressed in current or nominal dollars, which includes the effect of inflation.
Why this difference from using "chained" or real 2002 dollars in other categories I couldn't say, I'm just trying to report the facts as presented.
In the various texts focused on trying to define the sport fishery there is some discussion about the similarities and overlap between it and the broader tourism sector. The two are to some degree inextricably linked as a tourist is defined as someone pursuing an activity more than 80 kilometers and staying at least one night away from home.
No doubt it is hard to disentangle the two and it should be acknowledged that some activities and values credited to sport fishing might not be in a perfect world. Conversely, values associated with sport fishing such as goods sold to anglers by large chain stores, for which the value represents a small portion of their overall revenue but which never the less in aggregate likely represents a reasonably large sum is under-represented or isn't captured at all in the survey.
Despite the best efforts of the reports' author's to be accurate, acknowledging the lack of complete precision regarding sport fishing inputs to the survey is an acknowledgement of the size and complexity of the fishery itself. Our fishery takes place in a vast array of surroundings by hundreds of thousands of participants engaged in the fishery in many, many different ways so crossing the t's and dotting the i's to ensure exactitude amounts to mission impossible.
What is possible to take away from this most recent survey is that highly trained and experienced staff of a government agency, whose job it is to work out these comparisons between fishery sectors on behalf of the government in the most unbiased fashion possible using the most up to date and complete data, have found that sport fishing in BC is a serious contributor from the broad fisheries sector. Furthermore the values described are especially important in consideration of the relatively small size of the overall harvest of the fisheries resource.
I suspect that this comes as no surprise to many of us but this report should be useful information for government to consider when the sport fishery has to argue its case as far reaching decisions about its future are being made.
Jeremy Maynard , Courier-Islander
Published: Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Recently readers of this newspaper may have seen a story reporting on the value and share of farmed salmon of overall seafood production in 2011 in BC. Ardent anglers, and others, may from time to time wonder if such data is compiled about the recreational fishery in this province and by what body. In addition, assuming it was compiled and a person knew where to find it, could such data be considered reliable?
The short answer is a) yes it is compiled b) by a provincial agency, BC Stats and c) as such it should be considered reliable. All this and much more is contained in a recently released report called "British Columbia's Fisheries and Aquaculture Sector, 2012 Edition", available from its home page at www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca .
Normally I'm the kind of guy whose eyes glaze over at the idea of reading economic data but because it involves fish and, more specifically, the sport fishery my interest was sparked to at least take in the general themes. I'm glad I did because there's a good news story for what the province continues to call sport fishing, in contrast to the term recreational fishing now favoured by the federal government.
Email to a friend Printer friendly
Font:
•
•
•
•
The report looks at four sections of the broad fisheries sector in BC, entitled Capture Fisheries, Aquaculture, Fish Processing and the Sport Fishery. It compares the four with each other and over time in a variety of categories. The report acknowledges that "sport fishing is not an industry for which there is a standard definition", ultimately deciding that the "sector was defined to include the sport fishing related activities of establishments that sell directly to anglers."
To use the word in a modern sense, with certain exceptions the metric used in the report is Gross Domestic Product. Described as the value added to the economy by an industry, GDP is calculated by subtracting materials, energy and purchased services from total revenues or output of an industry, valuing the contribution of each on a consistent basis.
As importantly, unless otherwise noted the report is framed in terms of real rather than nominal GDP. This is done to strip out the effects of inflation and so this 2012 report is mostly expressed in what are referred to as "chained 2002 dollars" using a methodology set by Statistics Canada. In language that non-economists like me can understand this provides the basis for an apples to apples comparison between the four fishery sectors.
With that background in mind the report shows the provincial sport fishery, in both fresh and saltwater environments, to be the leader in a number of key areas.
Of an all-sector fisheries GDP of $667.4 million in 2011, sport fishing generated $325.7 million or 48.8% of the total. Perhaps as importantly in a society where the rate of employment (or more usually, un-employment) is an important metric in how it is doing the sport fishery accounted for 8,400 jobs out of an all-fisheries total of 13,900 or approximately 60%.
No surprise then that of the all-sector total paid out in wages of $388.3 million, nearly as high a percentage or $218.9 million was earned in the sport fishery in 2011. Similarly with revenues - of an all-fisheries sector total in 2011 of $2.2 billion, $936 million or about 44% was generated by the sport fishery in BC. The freshwater/saltwater split is assessed at $396 million and $540 million respectively.
In case any sharp-eyed reader was totting up these various sums of money and beginning to think that some of them don't add up, it is important to note that wages and revenues are expressed in current or nominal dollars, which includes the effect of inflation.
Why this difference from using "chained" or real 2002 dollars in other categories I couldn't say, I'm just trying to report the facts as presented.
In the various texts focused on trying to define the sport fishery there is some discussion about the similarities and overlap between it and the broader tourism sector. The two are to some degree inextricably linked as a tourist is defined as someone pursuing an activity more than 80 kilometers and staying at least one night away from home.
No doubt it is hard to disentangle the two and it should be acknowledged that some activities and values credited to sport fishing might not be in a perfect world. Conversely, values associated with sport fishing such as goods sold to anglers by large chain stores, for which the value represents a small portion of their overall revenue but which never the less in aggregate likely represents a reasonably large sum is under-represented or isn't captured at all in the survey.
Despite the best efforts of the reports' author's to be accurate, acknowledging the lack of complete precision regarding sport fishing inputs to the survey is an acknowledgement of the size and complexity of the fishery itself. Our fishery takes place in a vast array of surroundings by hundreds of thousands of participants engaged in the fishery in many, many different ways so crossing the t's and dotting the i's to ensure exactitude amounts to mission impossible.
What is possible to take away from this most recent survey is that highly trained and experienced staff of a government agency, whose job it is to work out these comparisons between fishery sectors on behalf of the government in the most unbiased fashion possible using the most up to date and complete data, have found that sport fishing in BC is a serious contributor from the broad fisheries sector. Furthermore the values described are especially important in consideration of the relatively small size of the overall harvest of the fisheries resource.
I suspect that this comes as no surprise to many of us but this report should be useful information for government to consider when the sport fishery has to argue its case as far reaching decisions about its future are being made.
