The status of routine fishery data collection in Southeast Asia, central America, the South Pacific, and West Africa, with special reference to small-scale fisheries

Abstract

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) strategy for improving information on the status and trends of capture fisheries (FAO Strategy STF) was endorsed by Member States and the UN General Assembly in 2003. Its overall objective is to provide a framework, strategy, and plan to improve knowledge and understanding of the status and trends of fisheries as a basis for policy-making and management, towards conservation and sustainable use of resources within ecosystems. The FAO supports the implementation of FAO Strategy STF in developing countries through a project known as FAO FishCode–STF, and an initiative funded by the World Bank entitled the “BigNumbers project”. The BigNumbers project underscored the importance of small-scale fisheries and revealed that catches by and employment in this sector tend to be underreported. An inventory of data collection systems made under the FAO FishCode–STF project showed that small-scale fisheries are not well covered. Their dispersed nature, the weak institutional capacity in many developing countries, and the traditional methods used make routine data collection cumbersome. Innovative sampling strategies are required. The main priority is a sample frame for small-scale fisheries. Sustainable strategies are most likely to be found outside the sector through population and agricultural household censuses and inside the sector through the direct involvement of fishers.