Small-scale fisheries and food security strategies in countries in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) region: Angola,Namibia and South Africa

This paper provides an overview of the small-scale fisheries sector in countries within the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME), one of the most productive large marine ecosystems in the world. The study revealed that Angola, Namibia and South Africa have very different legal and policy frameworks, show different levels of compliance with international and regional agreements to protect the livelihoods and food security of small-scale fishers, as well as of integration of fisheries into food security objectives. Angolan law recognises and protects small-scale fishers through legal and institutional mechanisms. In Namibia, this sector of fishers is not legally recognised, while in South Africa traditional fishers have been largely excluded from the new fisheries management framework. Trends in national and regional fish consumption and in the extent of export orientation in fisheries are explored, as well as the potential threats to small-scale producers and food security in the region posed by ongoing drives to incorporate fisheries in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements.     

Economic impact of climate change and climate change adaptation strategies for fisheries sector in Solomon Islands: Implication for food security

Fisheries resources play a major role in the national economy and to food security in Solomon Islands. Climate change is likely to have a substantial impact on fish production that can lead to a fragile food security condition in the country. This paper assesses the potential economic impact of three important climate change adaptation strategies – natural resource management (NRM), fish aggregating devices (FAD) and aquaculture – in Solomon Islands. The study used a country-specific partial equilibrium economic model with six fish sub-sectors and analyzed potential impact of alternate climate change adaptation strategies for 2035 and 2050. The modeling and scenario analyses show that total fish demand is likely to surpass domestic fish production in 2050. Without appropriate climate adaptation strategy, per capita consumption of domestically produced fish will decline, which has serious negative food security implications for the country. The economic (welfare) analysis conducted based on modeling results show that the national level net economic gains due to climate change adaptation strategies are substantial. If cost and topographic conditions permit, low-cost inshore FADs are expected to be a good mechanism for augmenting domestic supplies of tuna and similar species in Solomon Islands.     

秋季黄海中南部鱼类群落对饵料生物的摄食量

研究鱼类与饵料生物之间食物定量关系进而为多鱼种资源评估提供依据,2000~2002年秋季(10~11月)在黄海中南部海域进行了定点底拖网调查,应用Eggers模型,计算了带鱼(Trichiurus lepturus)、小黄鱼(Pseudosciaena polyactis)、黄(Lophius litulon)、细纹狮子鱼(Liparis tanakae)等23种鱼类在秋季对饵料生物的摄食量。结果表明:黄海中南部23种鱼类在秋季对饵料生物的总摄食量约为309万t,其中,鱼(Engraulis japonicus)的摄食量最高(在250万t以上),占总摄食量的80.9%。中上层和底层鱼类对饵料生物的摄食量分别为262万t和47万t左右,占总摄食量的84.7%和15.3%,鱼和细纹狮子鱼分别是中上层和底层鱼类中最主要的捕食者。磷虾类是中上层鱼类最主要的食物来源,其次是桡足类、端足类和毛颚类;虾类和鱼类是底层鱼类最主要的食物来源,其次是磷虾类。太平洋磷虾(Euphausia pacifica)、中华哲水蚤(Calanus sinicus)、细长脚虫戎(Themisto gracilipes)、脊腹褐虾(Crangon affinis)和鱼同时是黄海中南部被摄食量最高的5种饵料生物,它们被摄食的生物量之和约为233万t,占总摄食量的75.5%。     

The socio-economic context for improving food security through land based aquaculture in Solomon Islands: A peri-urban case study

Future fish demand-supply scenarios project that investment in aquaculture will be needed to ensure fish for food security in Solomon Islands. In 2010 a study of two peri-urban areas of Solomon Islands analysed the demand and potential for inland aquaculture, and the role of the introduced Mozambique tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) in household livelihoods and existing value chains. Of 178 households interviewed, marine reef fish were the preferred fish for consumption, although tinned fish was also common. At the study sites, Mozambique tilapia was accessible and contributed to food security, particularly for inland households. Sixty five percent of the people actively fished for tilapia at least monthly; 13% of these fished on almost a daily basis. Fish were consumed by men, women and children and sold by both men and women in local village markets. Mozambique tilapia is considered to perform poorly in aquaculture. While other species like Nile tilapia or milkfish (Chanos chanos) are being considered for aquaculture by the Solomon Islands Government, Mozambique tilapia is currently the only cost-effective and widely available alternative for farming fish for household food security. This study lends weight to the premise that peri-urban households that are cash poor are likely to benefit nutritionally from easier access to tilapia or other freshwater fish.     

Vulnerability to impacts of climate change on marine fisheries and food security

Assessment of fisheries vulnerability to climate change is an important step for enhancing the understanding and decision-making to reduce such vulnerability. This study aimed to provide an analysis of country level vulnerability focusing on food security implications of climatic disturbances on marine fisheries. The comparative magnitude and distribution of potential food security impacts of climatic disturbances on marine fisheries were assessed for 109 countries by scoring and ranking countries against a set of vulnerability criteria including metrics of national exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, highlighting the contribution of marine fisheries to national food and nutrition security. Results showed that developing countries in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America appeared to be most vulnerable, and the key sources of vulnerability differed considerably among the countries. For countries most vulnerable to climate-induced effects on marine fisheries, more than two-thirds of them depended on domestic marine fisheries as a main source of fish supply. Developing appropriate adaptation policies and management plans to reduce the impacts of changing climate is of great importance to sustain food security in these highly vulnerable and heavy marine fisheries-dependent countries.     

Managing fisheries and corruption in the Pacific Islands region

The Pacific Islands region includes some of the smallest countries in the world, some of which are in a precarious economic condition and heavily reliant on the region's tuna fisheries for revenue and food security. The ability of some of these countries to profit from their fisheries resources, and effectively conserve these resources for future generations, is undermined by a combination of economic, governance and institutional weaknesses that make these countries vulnerable to corruption in the fisheries sector.     

Comments on FAOs State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA 2016)

Comments are provided on several points in the 2016 State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It is shown that data assembled by FAO from submissions by countries suggest a “stable” trend mainly because the declining catches of a number of countries with reliable statistics is compensated for by unreliable statistics from countries where reporting increasing catches may be politically expedient, e.g., China, Myanmar. Also, concerns are raised as to why FAO chose to ignore the well-documented data ‘reconstruction’ process, which fills the gaps that exist in data reported by countries to FAO. It is being ignored despite its importance for governance and resource conservation being well known. This process and its findings could be used by FAO to encourage countries to improve their data reporting, including retroactive corrections. This is important in view of successive analyses of the status of fisheries resources undertaken by FAO (published in current and past SOFIAs) and also in modified form by the Sea Around Us. This suggests a degradation of marine fisheries, and, if trends continue, a crisis by mid-century. Finally, comments are presented on the proposition that aquaculture will overtake wild capture fisheries in terms of food production, notably because current aquaculture requires huge quantities of wild-caught fish as feed. Indeed, this emphasis on aquaculture-as-substitute for fisheries raises issues of food security and malnutrition in developing countries, from which much of the fish used as feed originates.     

Extracting ideology from policy: Analysing the social construction of conservation priorities in the Coral Triangle region

This study presents an analysis of marine resource management activities designed to ameliorate concerns over fish stocks, food and livelihood insecurity in the coastal Asia Pacific region, with a specific focus on the area encompassed by the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF). Firstly, the study explores how the CTI-CFF framing of food insecurity as symptomatic of economic deficiencies at the household level reflects the broader neoliberal conservation agenda driving the CTI-CFF and serves to legitimate the latter as the natural authority for intervention. Secondly, the paper uses an example of local level fishery management to demonstrate how the logic of neoliberalism translates to regulations which fail to recognise social and political complexities confronting fishers, thereby exacerbating the precarity of food and livelihood security in these communities. Thirdly, the paper contrasts the Western scientific emphasis on maintaining food security through managing coral reef fisheries with evidence from Indonesia and the Philippines which demonstrates the much larger contribution from pelagic fisheries and aquaculture to food security. The paper concludes with a call for research and aid-funded interventions on fishery management, livelihoods and food security to better reflect the needs of coastal people in the Asia-Pacific region, rather than the values commonly espoused by Western scientists and conservationists.     

Restructuring the Chinese seafood industry,global challenges and policy implications

This article discusses how the Chinese seafood industry will affect the rest of the world's fishing industries. The analysis is based on theories of economic comparative advantage, the international division of labour and the internationalization process related to trade activities. Given the increasing domestic demand for fish in China, the limited availability of domestic fish stocks and less success for farmed marine fish in China are considered some of the most important factors in restricting the growth in Chinese seafood production. The necessity of raw fish imports into China may increase pressure on global fish stocks and international fish prices, resulting in tighter supplies worldwide and higher seafood prices for the Chinese. Sustainable fish harvests and trade require stronger fishery management, in particular in the relations between seafood companies and governments along the entire international value chain supplying China. Such structural changes may allow new value-added possibilities for fish farming and the upgrading of certain fish species for human consumption that were previously utilized purely for fish feed.     

Indonesian aquaculture futures: An analysis of fish supply and demand in Indonesia to 2030 and role of aquaculture using the AsiaFish model

This paper explores the seafood sector in Indonesia, using fish supply-demand modeling, with special focus on the growing role of aquaculture in the country's food portfolio. The paper describes six scenarios for future fish supply–demand dynamics and examines the role of aquaculture growth in fish supply in Indonesia. A business as usual scenario (BAU) assumed exogenous variables of our supply-demand model following historical trends. Five alternative scenarios explored the implications of stagnant capture fisheries; export-oriented growth of aquaculture; domestic-oriented aquaculture growth; slow growth of aquaculture sector; and disease outbreaks to key aquaculture species. The BAU scenario projected that fish supply and demand in Indonesia continues to increase over time and strong aquaculture growth is critical to meet increasing demand for fish. Stagnant capture fisheries resulted in increasing fish prices and decreasing fish consumption. Export-oriented aquaculture growth benefitted fish supply and exports, but also helped lower domestic prices and thus increase consumption. An emphasis on domestic aquaculture commodities increased fish supply, providing best domestic consumption outcomes and lower consumer prices. Slow aquaculture growth reduced fish supply and led to undesirable increases in domestic prices and decreasing domestic consumption as a consequence. Disease outbreaks in shrimp and carp aquaculture resulted in a short-term reduction in aquaculture output and increasing fish prices, lowering fish consumption.     

Fishing for the future: An overview of challenges and opportunities

This paper surveys the current state and major trends in global fisheries; the environmental and social dimensions of fisheries; and explains how the international community has tried to meet the policy challenges associated with oceans and fisheries. The ocean and the freshwater ecosystems of the world make significant contributions to people's well-being via the many vital social and environmental services they provide (for example, food and nutrition, employment and incomes, carbon cycling and sequestration). The impact that the increase in fishing since the 1950s has had on wild fish stocks, and the significant increase in aquaculture production in the 20th century, have resulted in severe environmental impacts. This has significant effects on marine ecosystems and the health of oceans. The erosion of the resource undermines communities' long-term interests, including food security, employment, and income. Attempts by the global community to address challenges of sustainable production by improving the governance and management of fisheries resources range from national management of fisheries resources, to regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) for international fisheries stocks. These attempts have not always successfully met the challenge of balancing current and future use of fisheries.     

The best catch data that can possibly be? Rejoinder to Ye et al. “FAO's statistic data and sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture”

Here we reply to a commentary by Ye et al. (Mar. Policy 2017; Ye et al.) on our article (Pauly and Zeller, 2017 [2]) commenting on FAO's interpretation of current fisheries trends in SOFIA 2016 (The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture). We show how arguments such as FAO's catch statistics being “the best they can possibly be”, and other manifestations of FAO's difficulties in constructively engaging with comments compromises FAO's stated goal to engage with academia and civil society. This is particularly serious in an age where the value of an open scientific discourse is increasingly under threat, as is the food security of many poor countries in which fish supplied by domestic fisheries constitutes a strong component of local diets.     

Profitability and economic drivers of small pelagic fisheries in West Africa: A twenty year perspective

Small pelagics are the main fish resource in North West Africa. In Senegal, these are mainly sardinellas (Sardinella aurita and S. maderensis) and bonga shad (Ethmalosa fimbriata). The fisheries, mainly encircling gillnets and purse seines, are predominantly performed by artisanal fishers and are of great importance for the Senegalese economy and for food security in the region. However, in recent years, the main conditions for these fisheries have changed and recent observations have shown strong declines in profit. An analysis over the last twenty years (1993–2013) show that the fisheries lost profit between 65% and 100% while operating costs increased by 25% and 90%, for encircling gillnet and purse seine, respectively. While the fuel price dominates as determining factor during the survey period, important other drivers during the last five years were a decrease in fish biomass and an increase in fishing effort.     

Defining fishers in the South African context: subsistence,artisanal and small-scale commercial sectors

Evolution of a new policy for the management of marine fisheries in South Africa led to the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998 (MLRA). Among other innovations, this requires that management strategies be developed for subsistence fisheries. As a prerequisite, definitions and criteria are needed to identify and distinguish them. To achieve this, the Chief Director of Marine & Coastal Management (MCM), the authority responsible for managing marine fisheries, appointed a Subsistence Fisheries Task Group (SFTG) to make recommendations about definitions and modes of management. The process involved successive surveys and consultations with fishing communities, communication with MCM, and a national workshop of all participants. This led to consensus about the following definition:

Subsistence fishers are poor people who personally harvest marine resources as a source of food or to sell them to meet the basic needs of food security; they operate on or near to the shore or in estuaries, live in close proximity to the resource, consume or sell the resources locally, use low-technology gear (often as part of a long-standing community-based or cultural practice), and the kinds of resources they harvest generate only sufficient returns to meet the basic needs of food security.     

Governance of tuna industries: The key to economic viability and sustainability in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean

The Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) tuna fishery is an important global food resource, and the economies of many Pacific Islands Countries (PICs) rely heavily on tuna industries. This paper proposes that governance by PICs is the key to improving the sustainability and profitability of tuna industries in the region. ‘Governance’ is usually used to refer to corruption, but here is interpreted more broadly to encompass the whole process by which decisions regarding public life are made and enacted, by government and also civil society. Argument is supported by empirical material from an interview study with stakeholders and a survey of reports.     

“Fish as food”: Exploring a food sovereignty approach to small-scale fisheries

This article explores how conceptualizing fish as food, rather than primarily as a resource or commodity supports a shift towards more systems-based approaches to engaging with fisheries (i.e. considering the relationships between ecosystems, people, management and policy). A “fish as food” lens is operationalized by drawing on the theory and practice of food sovereignty. While fishing people and communities have always been a core part of the food sovereignty movement, there have been limited efforts in the academic literature to explore these connections directly. Drawing on examples primarily from a Canadian context, it is argued that a deeper engagement between fisheries and food sovereignty is long overdue, particularly as a growing body of research on small-scale fisheries seeks to address social-ecological relationships and issues of power that are also at the core of a food sovereignty approach. This article identifies the opportunities and limitations of engaging with food sovereignty in the context of small-scale fisheries and suggests a series of key questions for future fish as food research and policy.     

Global seafood trade flows and developing economies: Insights from linking trade and production

Knowing the patterns of marine resource exploitation and seafood trade may help countries to design their future strategic plans and development policies. To fully understand these patterns, it is necessary to identify where the benefits accumulate, how balanced the arrangements are, and how the pattern is evolving over time. Here the flow of global seafood was traced from locations of capture or production to their countries of consumption using novel approaches and databases. Results indicate an increasing dominance of Asian fleets by the volume of catch from the 1950s to the 2010s, including fishing in the high seas. The majority of landings were by high-income countries’ fishing fleets in their own waters in the 1950s but this pattern was greatly altered by the 2010s, with more equality in landings volume and value by fleets representing different income levels. Results also show that the higher the income of a country, the more valuable seafood it imports compared to its exports and vice versa. In theory, this implies that the lower income countries are exporting high value seafood in part to achieve the broader goal of ending poverty, while achieving the food security goal by retaining and importing lower value seafood. In the context of access arrangements between developed and developing countries, the results allow insights into the consequences of these shifting sources of income may have for goals such as poverty reduction and food security.     

Changes in wild fish assemblages after the establishment of a fish farming zone in an oligotrophic marine ecosystem

The species composition, abundance and diversity of demersal fish assemblages has been investigated in an oligotrophic coastal bay in the Aegean Sea which is a designated zone for the development of aquaculture. Samples were collected using experimental trawling, before the establishment of fish cages in the area during early June 1987 and after attaining the maximal production of the aquaculture zone in late May 2001. The overall abundance of the fish assemblage increased by a factor of 4 and the average trophic level of the fish community increased from 3.59 to 3.79. Traditional diversity indices showed an increase in dominance but the distinctness measures of biodiversity showed that the overall structure obtained after the establishment of fish farming was not phylogenetically impoverished. Multivariate analysis showed that the community differences between the two periods are quantitative rather than qualitative. Comparisons in length frequencies between the two periods indicated that specimens of the species compared were either similar or larger in the second period. The species favoured by the presence of aquaculture were not the ones normally feeding on the food pellets under the cages but those normally occurring in the fishing grounds of the study. It is concluded that the release of nutrients from fish farming in nutrient-poor systems can have a positive effect on local fisheries with no visible negative change in species composition or biodiversity.     

Understanding socio-ecological drivers of spatial allocation choice in a multi-species artisanal fishery: A Bayesian network modeling approach

Effective management of artisanal fisheries requires understanding fishers, their behaviors, and the drivers that underpin their choices. Behavioral drivers are critical links in understanding the interactions between social and ecological systems and can help inform effective management approaches. A Bayesian Belief Network modeling approach was used to investigate a diverse range of qualitative and quantitative social and ecological drivers of spatial location choice in a multi-species artisanal dive fishery in Costa Rica. Empirical and observer data used to populate the BBN showed the influence of economic factors, environmental conditions as well as social interactions on the decision-making process of spatial location choice. Good governance scenarios represented by Responsible Fisheries Marine Areas Management were analyzed for both hookah and free diving methods to assess the effects of responsible fishing on the fishers and the fishery. Model based-scenario analysis suggests that management interventions should consider the fisher's potential behavioral responses in the context of environmental variability, dependence on cultural assets, and food security. The results show that there is a need to understand fisher's decisions based on broad socio-ecological system understanding and consider the environmental outcomes alongside food security and the cultural significance of different marine species to fishing communities.     

Working up an appetite for lionfish: A market-based approach to manage the invasion of Pterois volitans in Belize

Located on the Caribbean coast of Central America and flanked by the second longest barrier reef in the world, Belize is a nation reliant upon marine resources. Each year, the country’s predominantly small-scale fisheries generate an estimated US$22 million in revenue – 1.8%of GDP – and employ 3000 people. However, the nation’s fishing communities are facing an unprecedented challenge. Existing threats posed by declining fish stocks have been exacerbated by the introduction of the invasive alien red lionfish Pterois volitans in 2008. This Indo-Pacific predator has the potential to cause significant losses to the recruitment of native fish, in turn disrupting coral reef community dynamics in the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Howefver, targeted lionfish fishing may offer a cost effective means to control the invasion, while also creating an alternative livelihood solution and improving food security among Belize's coastal fishing communities. This study summarises the recent history of the lionfish invasion in Belize, describes the multi-sector approach being used to address the invasion, and presents preliminary research summarising the characteristics of invasive alien lionfish in Belize. Data from Belize's nascent ‘lionfishery’ are also presented, demonstrating that demand for lionfish is outweighing supply – largely as a result of awareness-raising initiatives – and highlighting the strong potential for replication of this approach elsewhere in the Caribbean. The study concludes by discussing the barriers and potential solutions to this market-based approach to invasive species management.