Fisheries Newsletter No 144 (May-August 2014)

Editorial

The table of contents for this issue reveals a theme that is very common to fisheries: a mix of hope and worry. Most articles fall into the hope category, and are related to development, with titles including words such as “new”, “improved”, “successful”, “creating”, “promising” and “project”. But other article titles make use of words such as “burning”, “yellow card”, “microplastics” and “hot issues”, a reminder that fisheries stories are not all good news.

These articles reflect a challenge that government bodies and agencies involved in fisheries constantly face: finding the right balance between development and management efforts.

In the Pacific Islands region, all of the major fisheries have already been developed, several of them “overdeveloped”. There is scope for the limited development of a few minor fisheries (e.g. aquarium fish, coastal pelagic fish and giant squid), and aquaculture certainly has potential. But, these will not produce enough to replace coastal fisheries if these are not properly managed. In other words, if the main focus is not on management, these development efforts may be just a little more useful than a band-aid on a wooden leg.

In his article on page 53, Robert Gillett writes: “In fisheries management, the hardest task is often the placing of controls on fishers to prevent resource degradation”. He notes that alternative development schemes are often used as ways to avoid necessary restrictive management. Interestingly, he names it “management distractions” and cites it as one of the hot issues on Pacific Island coastal fisheries.

Development or management, development and management... Pacific Island fisheries require that development become no more than a fully integrated part of management.

Aymeric Desurmont
Fisheries Information Specialist