Accurate Catches and the Sustainability of Coral Reef Fisheries

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

Accurate catches and the sustainability of coral reef ﬁsheries

Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller

While there might be differences in details, any deﬁnition of Such expansion is a characteristic of industrial ﬁshing, and

‘sustainability’ must include an element that remains similar has led to a number of distant-water ﬁshing nations to

over time. For example, this applies to the catches of coral reef deploy vessels operating even in Antarctic waters [3,4 ,5].

ﬁsheries, which cannot be sustainable if exhibiting a strong

ascending or descending trend. Thus, despite claims of the Industrial-scale exploitation of coral reef ﬁsheries

efﬁcacy of ‘data-less’ management, at least time series of the resources, on the other hand, is quite rare outside of

catch of coral reef ﬁsheries must be known for valid inferences muro-ami operations, which however leave only coral

on their status to be drawn. By contrasting the ofﬁcial and the rubble in their wake, and therefore do not need to be

‘reconstructed’ coral reef catches of four small island states discussed in the context of sustainability. Thus, the

(Fiji and Tonga in the Paciﬁc, and Jamaica and St Kitts & Nevis question that could be posed instead is: how sustainable

in the Caribbean), we show, however, that ofﬁcial catch data, are small-scale coral reef ﬁsheries?

as made available to and by the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO) not only strongly A famous biologist-turned-maritime-anthropologist, Bob

underestimate catches (from 4 to 17 times for 1950–2010), but Johannes, suggested that coral reef ﬁsheries in the tropical

also suggest increasing catch trends in 3 of 4 cases, that is, the Paciﬁc were sustainably managed, without ‘western

very opposite of the trend resulting from the bottom-up catch science’ [7], because of the deep traditional knowledge

reconstructions. Some implications of these ﬁndings, which we of the people who had exploited and managed these

think have general currency, are presented. resources for centuries [see also [8]]. Work by others,

for example, in the South Paciﬁc [9,10] and in Hawaii and

Addresses 2

Florida [11], tends to support this claim.

Sea Around Us Project, Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia,

2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4

However, traditional modesof exploitation ofreefresources

Corresponding author: Zeller, Dirk (d.zeller@ﬁsheries.ubc.ca)

have faded away, or have been actively suppressed by

colonial powers [9,10], and while there are numerous

current efforts to revive them throughout the Paciﬁc, the

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2014, 7:44–51

context within which coral reef ﬁsheries operate is generally

This review comes from a themed issue on Aquatic and marine

very different from that of pre-colonial (or pre-contact)

systems

times. Thus, these ﬁsheries are currently conducted with

Edited by Georgios Tsounis and Bernhard Riegl motorized boats and modern gear, and can land ﬁsh in port

cities with airports ready for marketing internationally — a

far cry from the situation prevailing before, when lineage or

village chiefs could prohibit ﬁshing on certain reefs, and

S1877-3435/$ – see front matter, # 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights

reserved. where one’s village was the only outlet for the ﬁsh caught

during a trip with an un-motorized craft [9,10].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.11.027

As for the Caribbean, the wholesale replacement of the

Amerindian inhabitants by populations initially lacking a

Introduction connection with the sea (mainly Sub-Saharan African

Research on sustainability has numerous dimensions, one farmers) prevented the continuation of any traditional

of them being semantics — for example, what does approaches to managing coral reef ﬁsheries. Moreover, in

‘sustainable ﬁshing’ mean, if anything? Clearly, industrial the Caribbean, but to a certain extent also in the Paciﬁc,

ﬁshing, especially trawling, which began around the Eng-

lish coast at the end of the 19th century, has never been

sustainable in the sense that a given stock was exploited 1

Muro-ami ﬁshing is a method wherein a coral reef is completely

at any given place for a long period [1 ,2]. Rather, encircled with a ﬁne mesh net and the reef is then smashed to bits with

trawlers could maintain their unprecedented high catch stones attached to ropes, such that the ﬁsh previously hidden in the

reef’s crevices are caught in the net [6].

rates only by expanding the scope of their operation, ﬁrst 2

However, the claim by Johannes that the Palau ﬁsheries he described

to the open North Sea, then the wider North Atlantic all

are sustainable cannot be tested because ‘‘Words of the Lagoon’’, as the

the way to Iceland, where in the 1930s, they began to title may imply, does not present any numbers to describe actual

exploit stocks which Icelanders perceived as theirs [3]. catches.

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2014, 7:44–51 www.sciencedirect.com

Coral reef fisheries catches and sustainability Pauly and Zeller 45

profound changes in land tenure created a large number [28], Jamaica [29], and St. Kitts & Nevis [30] (Figure 1)

of surplus farmers (i.e. underemployed young men) for were ‘reconstructed’ for 1950–2010 based on the concept

whom ﬁshing became, in recent decades, an occupation of in Pauly [31] and the approach outlined in Zeller et al.

last resort [12 ,13]. [21 ]. The former posits that:

Combined with a strong population and income growth, There is no ﬁshery with ‘no data’, because a ﬁshery, as a

these trends generated, in the last decades an immense social activity with a ‘ﬁsh catching’ component, will

demand for ﬁsh, both local and international, and a huge always impact on other sectors of an economy, such as

increase in ﬁshing effort to meet that demand. Fisheries, employment, seafood supply, or fuel requirements.

which had arguably not needed any sort of scientiﬁc input Thus, it is nearly always possible to infer, if grossly, the

[8] became so intensive that they induced massive magnitude of the catches of a ﬁshery.

changes on the underlying coral reef ecosystem [14 ]. It is always worse to put a value of ‘zero’ (i.e. to say

nothing about its catch) for the catch of a poorly

We argue that under such conditions (i.e. high-perform- documented ﬁshery than to estimate its catch, even

ance modern gear, disappearance of strict traditional ﬁsh- roughly, because subsequent users of one’s statistics

ing rules, and even international marketing of catch), will interpret the zeroes as ‘no catches’, rather than

notions of ‘data-less’ management become questionable ‘catches unknown’. This even applies to actual entries

and likely cannot ensure sustainability, however deﬁned. of ‘no data’, which subsequently get treated as ‘zero’

Indeed, for such ﬁsheries, sustainability is in many cases catch.

not an issue any more; the challenge is rather the rebuild-

ing of exploited populations [15]. Moreover, whichever

Based thereon, the approach of Zeller et al. [21 ] for

way the challenge is deﬁned, once the notion of ‘data-less’

reconstructing catches details a 6-step process, general-

management is abandoned, the question becomes: which

ized and summarized as:

data are necessary for the management of coral reef

ﬁsheries?

1) Identiﬁcation, sourcing and comparison of existing,

reported catch times series:

Given the scarcity of resources (both ﬁnancial and tech-

a. FAO reported landings data by FAO area, taxon

nical) in most tropical countries that have coral reefs,

and year;

highly technical and expensive data regimes, such as

b. National data series by area, taxon and year.

those required for traditional stock assessments and

2) Identiﬁcation of sectors (e.g. subsistence), time

extensive ﬁsheries-independent surveys, have been and

periods, species, gears etc., not covered by (1), that

likely continue to be unavailable and unobtainable. This

is, missing data components. This is conducted via

leaves these countries with the most fundamental and

extensive literature searches and consultations with

most basic of all ﬁsheries data, namely data on total

local experts;

catches (and secondarily, data on ﬁshing effort). However,

3) Sourcing of available alternative information sources

to date, comparative studies of coral reef ﬁsheries have

on missing data identiﬁed in (2), via extensive searches

been generally based on catch (actually ‘landings’) stat-

of the literature (peer-reviewed and grey) and

istics made public by the Food and Agriculture Organ-

consultations with local experts. Information sources

ization of the United Nations (FAO), themselves based

include case studies, anthropological and social

on voluntary questionnaires and spreadsheets submitted

science studies, reports, data sets and expert knowl-

annually by FAO member countries [16]. However, these

edge;

‘catch’ data supplied by countries are usually highly

4) Development of data ‘anchor points’ in time for each

incomplete and/or inaccurate [17–20,21 ,22–26], especi-

missing data item, and expansion of anchor point data

ally for small-scale ﬁsheries such as those exploiting coral-

to country-wide catch estimates;

reef ﬁshes.

5) Interpolation for time periods between data anchor

points, either linearly or assumption-based for com-

Here, we document that the scope of the inaccuracies in

mercial ﬁsheries, and generally via per capita (or per-

reported landings data implies that the authorities in

ﬁsher) catch rates for non-commercial sectors; and

question do not know the key variable of the ﬁsheries

6) Estimation of total catch times series, combining

they are supposed to manage, that is, the catch. Thus,

reported catches (1) and interpolated, country-wide

they cannot ensure their sustainability, even if they had

expanded missing data series (5).

otherwise the means to do so (legislation, civil service,

budget, etc.).

The country-speciﬁc technical reports cited above (and

Materials and methods available under ‘publications’ at http://www.seaaroundu-

The catch from the domestic, small-scale (i.e. artisanal, s.org/about/) provide details on how the approach of

recreational and subsistence) ﬁsheries of Fiji [27], Tonga Zeller et al. [21 ] was applied to each speciﬁc island. As

www.sciencedirect.com Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2014, 7:44–51

46 Aquatic and marine systems

Figure 1

Fiji Tonga

50-metre depth Jamaica IFA St. Kitts & Nevis EEZ

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

The four examples of coral reef fisheries dependent island countries examined here, that is, Fiji [27] and Tonga [28] in the western Pacific, and Jamaica

[29] and St. Kitts & Nevis [30] in the Caribbean. Each has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ; black line, medium blue waters) extending beyond the

coastal and coral reef areas emphasized here. Maps show the 50 m depth contour (in red) indicative of ‘reefy’ areas, as well as the Inshore Fishing

Areas (IFA, dark blue) defined as those waters that are either less than 50 km from shore, or less than 200 m deep, and whose adjacent land is

inhabited. The IFA represents the general area used by small-scale fisheries in a country, which usually extends beyond the areas of living coral reefs.

Note that the offshore banks (e.g. Pedro bank) to the south-west of Jamaica are regularly and intensively fished by Jamaican small-scale fishers, and

hence are also treated as IFA, despite being more than 50 km from Jamaica.

two (Fiji and Tonga) of the four examples had original the FAO data as the reported landings component. The

reconstructions ending before 2010, these reconstructions ratio between the FAO reported component and total

were carried forward to 2010: reconstructed catches for 2007 was applied to the FAO

data for 2008–2010 to estimate the total reconstructed

Fiji: To update the reconstruction for Fiji [27] to 2010 catches for these years, that is, proportionality was

from the original end year of 2009, the 2010 FAO data assumed. The unreported catches for 2008–2010 were

were used as the reported catch baseline. In recent years, then assumed to be the difference between the reported

essentially all target-species catches that were landed FAO data and the estimated total catches.

were also reported, thus only large-scale commercial

by-catch and discards were unreported for 2010. Landed The key references used for the reconstruction of catches

by-catch and discards for 2010 were calculated based on of each country (Table 1) are presented by ﬁsheries

the proportion of 2009 landed by-catch and discards, component, these being large-scale commercial (or

respectively. ‘industrial’), small-scale commercial (i.e. artisanal), sub-

sistence, discards and recreational/tourist. This allows for

Tonga: The reconstruction for Tonga [28] originally went rapid comparison of the source type. Since the reconstruc-

to 2007, and required carrying forward to 2010 by using tions were conducted by these ﬁsheries components, and

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2014, 7:44–51 www.sciencedirect.com

Coral reef fisheries catches and sustainability Pauly and Zeller 47

Table 1

Key references used for the reconstruction of catches of the four island countries examined here, presented by fisheries components

used during the reconstruction

Fisheries component Fiji Tonga Jamaica St. Kitts & Nevis

Large-scale commercial [40,41] [42–44] [45–48] N/A

Small-scale commercial [49–51] [44,52,53] [48,54–57] [58–61]

Discards [62] N/A [63] N/A

Subsistence [50,64–67] [50,68–74] [75–77] [78]

Recreational N/A N/A [79,80] [81–84]

Other [85–87] [88] [89,90] [91]

then summarized for the present purpose into coral reef Results and discussion

and no-reef ﬁsheries using taxonomic afﬁliation with coral Each of the four islands had small-scale (coral reef)

reefs, we refrained from presenting the data anchor points catches that were strongly underreported in ofﬁcial stat-

graphically, as this would create a disconnect with regards istics. Irrespective of how one feels about the methods

to the present reef versus non-reef emphasis. and assumptions used in the catch reconstruction

Figure 2

Fiji Tonga 60 7 Non- reef fisheries Non- reef fisheries 50 6

) 5

3 40 4 30 Coral reef fisheries Coral reef fisheries 3 20 2 10 FAO 1 FAO

0 0

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Jamaica St Kitts & Nevis 70 2.0 Non- reef fisheries 1.8 60 Non- reef fisheries 1.6 50 ) Catch (t •10 1.4 3 40 1.2 1.0 30 FAO Coral reef fisheries 0.8

Catch (t •10 20 0.6 Coral reef fisheries FAO 0.4 10 0.2

0 0

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Year Year

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

Time series of fisheries catches from 1950 to 2010 for Fiji and Tonga in the Pacific (top), and Jamaica and St. Kitts & Nevis in the Caribbean (bottom),

showing in each case the reconstructed coral reef fisheries catches (light grey), as well as non-reef fisheries catches (mainly large pelagic tuna and

billfish catches; dark grey), with official catches as reported by FAO on behalf of each country overlaid as a solid line.

www.sciencedirect.com Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2014, 7:44–51

48 Aquatic and marine systems

Table 2

Key data for the four island countries examined here, presenting size of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), size of the Inshore Fishing

Area (IFA) , human population (1950, 2010), and average coral reef fisheries catches, averaged for the 1950s and 2000s.

2 2 a

Country EEZ (km ) IFA (km ) Human population Mean coral reef Source

catch (t)

1950 2010 1950s 2000s

Fiji 1,280,000 43,300 287,000 905,000 41,000 29,000 [27]

Tonga 665,000 7800 46,000 106,000 4400 4600 [28]

Jamaica 263,000 13,400 1,380,000 2,700,000 44,000 30,000 [29]

St. Kitts & Nevis 10,200 630 44,000 50,000 1600 840 [30]

The Inshore Fishing Areas (IFA) is deﬁned as those waters that are either less than 50 km from shore, or less than 200 m deep, and whose adjacent

land is inhabited This deﬁnition is a slight modiﬁcation from that in [92].

1) Catches, when expressed as a weight per time for a

summarized in Figure 2, the scale of ofﬁcial under-

number of taxa, provide a scale for the ﬁshery, and

reporting was substantial. This is especially true for earlier

anchor it onto the biology of the species reported in

time periods, where the reconstructed total catches were

the catch;

between nearly 4 fold higher for St. Kitts & Nevis to over 17

2) Catches, when re-expressed in terms of the ex-vessel

fold higher for Fiji compared to reported catches (Table 2,

value of the catch, allow the economic contribution of

Figure 2). However, even by the 2000s, three of the four

the ﬁshery in question [36] to be evaluated and

countries continued to miss substantial coral reef ﬁsheries

assessed against the potential cost and beneﬁts of

catches in their reported data (between 50% and >100%;

management intervention; and

Table 2, Figure 2). Fiji, whose more recent reporting

3) Time series of catches allow, under certain conditions

efforts are commendable, was the exception.

and assumptions, for preliminary assessments of a

ﬁshery using catch-data methods [37,38].

Besides the quantity of unreported catches, the differ-

ence in the trends could not be starker. In contrast to the

FAO data, which in three of the four countries show a However, for these properties of catch time series to

steady and gradual increase in catches over time apply, catches must be accurate, which is the real point

(Figure 2), the reconstructed coral reef catches show of this contribution. We suggest that authors, before

distinct, early time period peaks, ranging from the late conducting comparative studies on coral reef ﬁsheries,

1950s (St. Kitts & Nevis) to the late 1970s (Jamaica), should perform catch reconstructions as summarized

followed, in all cases, by a strong decline. here, and as detailed in the cited papers.

In other words, the actual trajectory of coral reef ﬁsheries Finally, we would like to argue that coral reef ﬁsheries can

catches over time of our four countries, and by inference, of be made sustainable, as they are generally small-scale in

other coral reef islands (see e.g. [19,22,26]), will usually be nature (with few exceptions, such as export oriented live

radically different than suggested by official (FAO) data. reef fisheries or muro-ami fisheries), and therefore they

Thus, we suggest that inferences on the sustainability of have more local community linkages compared to large-

reef ﬁsheries based on FAO data, however sophisticated scale ﬁsheries. This allows for community based initiat-

their rules for identifying the coral reef fraction of the catch ives and local-scale management or co-management [39],

that countries report may be (as done, e.g. in [32]), cannot which can ensure sustainability. But again, this requires

provide the basis for detailed comparisons and/or infer- that catch is regularly and comprehensively monitored/

ences on the status of reef ﬁsheries. estimated and accounted for [21 ].

Acknowledgements

Rather, assessment and comparisons of coral reefs ﬁsheries,

The work leading to this contribution was funded by the Sea Around Us

in term of their sustainability or other metrics, should rely project, a scientiﬁc collaboration between The University of British

— until the FAO member countries supply better catch Columbia and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

data on their coral reef ﬁsheries — on primary catch data

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