Invasive Species Price
Back to the Monitoring Hub
Increase the market price of invasive species
Improving
Gökova Bay to Cape Gelidonya
Türkiye
Problem: Invasive fish species are becoming increasingly abundant in this area. Increased water temperatures further exacerbate this problem, as some invasives benefit from higher temperatures, while native species often do not benefit. Invasives like lionfish and rabbitfish are herbivorous and negatively impact the seagrass meadows by overgrazing, also outcompeting native herbivorous fish. The more invasive fish are removed from the coastal area, the more the seagrass meadows and native fish populations can recover.
Action: AKD has set up a sustainable enterprise that enables fishers to sell the invasives caught in their fishing nets to local restaurants, establishing a market for this previously valueless catch, which they would historically discard, and increasing revenues for local fishers.
Indicator: An increase in market price of invasive species indicates increasing demand for invasive species consumption. The greater the demand for consumption of invasives, the more sustainable this business model is, and the more fishers will be incentivised to target removing invasives from the sea.
Methods
Fish landings data, for fishing outside NFZs using trammel nets and longlines, was recorded at four fishing cooperatives: Akyaka and Akçapınar in Gökova, and Göcek and Çalış in Fethiye. The cooperatives also recorded price data when fish were sold.
As AKD worked to build markets for invasive species, they also supported the cooperatives to add invasive species into their fish catch and price data collection records. Annual prices were calculated by averaging monthly prices. Data were then adjusted to account for national inflation, as the project spans a period of significant economic variability in Türkiye (including the Covid-19 global pandemic). For this, prices were first converted to US dollars according to the exchange rate in the period that data was collected, and prices were then deflated to a December 2024 US dollar base to remove the effects of inflation.
Local fisher pulls in catch. Photo: AKD.
Results
There were significant differences between years in the effect of both fish species and location on price, and the effect of fish species on price also varied among locations (Fig. 1).
There was no consistent trend in prices over time, although prices increased for specific species and locations (e.g. Randall’s threadfin bream at Çalış, rabbitfish in Göcek). However, when data collection for this indicator started, no data was collected by the collectives on fish species that did not have market value. The presence by 2023 of at least 5 species not present in the original data (such as lionfish in Akyaka, Çalış and Göcek; lizardfish in Çalış and Göcek, Red Sea goatfish in Akyaka, and redcoat in Göcek) suggests that some invasive species with no market value initially have established markets within the project period, a signficant success.
Figure 1: Mean price (USD / kg) of a suite of invasive fish species sold through fishing cooperatives across two project areas, Gökova and Fethiye.
Interpretation
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the sharp increase in inflation and the US dollar exchange rate after 2021, along with the higher price increases observed in commercial species, might have increased demand for more affordable invasive species. As this is a novel market, more time may be needed to see clear trends emerging.
Partners
