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• Archived Blog Post

  Date / Time: 7/9/2008 2:43 PM UTC

  Liquid Lounge at the Coral Reef Symposium - 9 July 2008
  

  Liquid Lounge will be live from the Coral Reef Symposium beginning at Noon today. Join me and my guests and we talk about the purpose of the conference and the good, and bad, news about the ocean, and the coral reefs.
  
  Timely updates are being filed by Nick Atkinson on www.coralreefnews.org.
  
  This is a report given on Tuesday, 8 July 2008: Current catch figures underestimate numbers of fishes taken from reefs; new data sources provide a more accurate view of fish population health and food security issues. A new study reveals that fisheries catches from tropical island nations are vastly underreported. The investigation of actual catches from 1950-2004 for 20 small island countries in the tropical Pacific shows that unreported catches were as great as reported catches. In most cases unreported catches were twice that of reported catches. The scientists have delved deeper into the investigation in some cases, such as American Samoa, where they found that uncounted catches were nearly 17 times higher than reported catches.

   

  "In FAO data, the only fish being reported are the ones that are being traded," said Dr. Daniel Pauly, University of British Columbia (UBC), who first recognized this underreporting problem when observing uncounted catches of fish and shellfish by women and children in many countries. Pauly continued, "In many cases, these small scale fisheries generate the most catch."
  

  
  The underreporting of fisheries data – particularly by subsistence fisheries – means official statistics have incorrectly informed national and international policy and management. The reconstructions of the catch figures, led by Dr. Dirk Zeller of UBC with help from researcher Jennifer Jacquet, shows the trend for domestic catches in some Pacific island nations has been declining by between 54 to 86 percent since 1950.

  Jacquet said, "When you underestimate fish catches what results is an underestimation of a community’s reliance on seafood." She added that government officials considering whether to sell fishing rights to other nations, may do so under the impression that they have plenty of fish and that their people are not very dependent on seafood. "We are stealing from the poor and giving to the rich," she stated. Zeller said, "Countries must do a better job estimating catch. It is vital to ensuring better management, food security and stronger economies." Pauly added that international bodies such as the World Bank and FAO must take small-scale fisheries into consideration as a major policy management issue and not relegate it to the sidelines because these are the fisheries that are likely to be sustained into the future, unlike heavily subsidized fishing fleets that essentially will go out of business because of rising costs.
  

  
  Media Contacts at University of British Columbia attending ICRS:

  Dr. Daniel Pauly, d.pauly@fisheries.ubc.ca,   604.822.1201 (office)

  Dr. Dirk Zeller, d.zeller@fisheries.ubc.ca,  604.822.1950 (office)

  Jennifer Jacquet, j.jacquet@fisheries.ubc.ca,  740.507.7339 (mobile)

  www.seaaroundus.org

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