How to manage a sustainable small scale artisanal fishery

Erik Maitz Boman – Data monitoring officer

Department of Agriculture and Fisheries

What is a sustainable fishery?

• Ecological sustainability – maintaining the resource base at levels that do not foreclose future options and maintaining or enhancing ecosystem capacity, quality and resilience.

• Socio-economic sustainability – maintaining or enhancing overall socio-economic welfare (employment, livelihood, food supply).

• Community sustainability – maintaining or enhancing the communities economic and socio-culture well-being.

Ecological sustainable indicators

• Catch level and effort• Fish population size• Biomass trend• Fish size, length frequency• Environmental Quality• Diversity (harvested species)• Diversity (ecosystem)

What kind of fishery do we have on Statia?

• Statia has an artisanal small scale fisheries.• Fishing fleet consist of small open boats.

What kind of fishery do we have on Statia?

• Eight main fishing methods.• More than 60 different species are targeted.• Understanding of the kind of fisheries you

manage is crucial.

What is the optimal fishing patter?

• Fisheries management involves numerous social and economic concerns but only two biological considerations.

• How much can be caught and how should it be caught?

• “How much” refers to the total amount of fish, that can be removed from a fish stock relative to its productivity?

• “How” refers to the specific fishing methods used to obtain the targeted amount.

How much ?

How ?

How?A non-selective

harvesting pattern is ecosystem conserving.

The system remains unchanged, except everything is less.

How much?

• What is “overfishing”? • Its when the rate of removal from stock is too

high so that the reproductive individuals in the stock can not replace the removed individuals with new.

• Fish stocks can become “overfished” for many reasons, including natural mortality, disease, environmental conditions and fishing.

How much?Density dependence

Carrying capacity

Reducing the biomass to half its virgin stateis where the stock has highest regenerative rate

Density

K2

The logistic Gordon-Schaefer model

Other stakeholders to consider

• Industries, divers, tourists, locals.• Have to a certain degree consider the other

stake holders needs.

How can tourism help managers create and maintain a sustainable fishery?

• Different species in demand from tourists and locals (multispecies, multigear).

• Less depended on near shore areas which may be more heavily fished.

• Opportunities for fishermen for additional source of income (fishing charters, catch release programs etc.).

Do we have a sustainable fishery on Statia?

• Small scale, multigear/multispecies, unselective (to a degree).

• Fisheries monitoring program (collection of fisheries data).

• Managers and fishermen are provided with information regarding status of the fish stocks and environmental quality.

• Yes we have a sustainable fishery on Statia.