Fish,fishing, and sea boundaries: Tuna stocks and fishing policies in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific

The distribution of various tuna species in the Pacific Ocean is bounded by the 20°C isotherm while their migrations are influenced by the major current systems and other oceanographic parameters which are here described. Tuna fisheries are important for the island nations of the tropical Pacific with Japan, the USA, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines prominently engaged in them. The fishery relies on longline, bait-dependent pole and line and purse seining techniques. The various tuna species are among the highest priced fishery commodities vigorously entering international trade in the frozen state or canned. However, with 200 nautical mile extended economic zones now being customary international law, new patterns of resource ownership and management needs have arisen that call for enhanced international cooperation in fisheries research and in surveillance and enforcement; a discussion of possible patterns for such cooperation terminates this article.This article is a contribution of the Oceans Project of the East-West-Center, Honolulu, Hawaii     

The role of aquaculture in human nutrition

Aquaculture, the farming and husbandry of freshwater and marine organisms furnishes about 12% of the food man obtains from the waters of the globe. It is most important in Asia and has grown rapidly in the last decade. The development of aquaculture must rely on control over production sites, in most cases, and on the application of various bio-technical inputs. It dates back to antiquity and has relied on fish and molluscs as its mainstays. Freshwater species predominate among the former but increasing competition for the freshwater resources of the globe indicate that the cultivation of marine species (mariculture) will be of increasing importance. Many species are partly or fully cultured with very few having assumed domesticated, i.e., genetically improved status. The world's tropics with their warmer climate present greater development potential for aquaculture than the temperate zone, a fact that promises to make it especially valuable in policies to improve the diets of developing nations. An overview is given here over species and methods of aquaculture with the latter seen as a continuum having at one pole feedlot types of management with strong control over environmental variables and high inputs, also resulting in high yields, and at the other an approach that could be likened to pasturage. Feeding is not excluded in it but recycling and astute steering of ecological processes are equally if not more important management mechanisms here. Biological and engineering research in aquaculture is being pursued widely. However, pollution, site competition, security of tenure to a site and the like have to be addressed in equal measure for aquaculture to hold its promise of furnishing important quantities of high quality protein food.     

Global warming and the coastal zone

Updated from a background paper for the Villach September 1987 Workshop on Developing Policies for Responding to Climatic Change, the article first deals with varying effects on fish production in the coastal zone. Assessment of the extent and direction of these effects will have to await regionalized predictions of temperature and related changes. Exploitation of non-living coastal resources which follows is not likely to be affected by a sea level rise, but recreation will suffer through land loss while aquaculture may be favored in some and disfavored in others of its modes. Estuaries and atolls can be severely impacted by a sea level rise both by loss of valuable, if not essential, land; they are also more vulnerable to salt water incursion, storm surges, and typhoons. Tropical river mouth, especially in Asia and arctic regions, are treated. Anticipatory actions toward mitigation of effects of a sea level rise are essentially those of coastal zone planning with the caveat that technical fixes eventually to be employed have to be adjusted to the highly site-specific characteristics of the land water interface.