Fish stock falls unreported

Abstract

A new study finds that catches of tropical and reef fish are going unrecorded, threatening efforts to maintain stocks. Nigel Williams reports. A new study finds that catches of tropical and reef fish are going unrecorded, threatening efforts to maintain stocks. Nigel Williams reports. Fish stocks globally are facing a triple whammy. Not only are regulators failing to implement scientific advice on sustainable quotas, but bycatch thrown back into the sea is also adding to mortality for many species, and a new study finds that much tropical and reef fishing is going unreported. Official statistics do not take into account the substantial catches made by some of the poorest nations that rely on fishing as a food staple, a study has found. Scientists have estimated that, for more than 50 years, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has failed to report the huge numbers of fish being caught by small-scale fisheries in its statistics on national catches. They believe the discrepancy is exacerbating the decline of fish stocks by allowing some of the poorest countries to report higher fish stocks than actually exist. This permits them to sell off their fishing rights to richer nations which take the higher-value fish. The team found that reconstructed actual catches off Mozambique were up to six times greater than those reported. They also found that Tanzania did not report catches off Zanzibar, which account for 30 per cent of the country's total catch. In spite of the discrepancy, the Mozambique government was using its reported catch to justify selling off fishing permits to EU boats that were coming to Mozambique waters to fish for high-value shrimp, which often leads to substantial bycatch that is thrown overboard as waste — further depleting stocks for the local community, the researchers say. The under-reporting of fisheries data — particularly by small-scale subsistence fisheries — is a problem Daniel Pauly, one of the authors at the University of British Columbia, recognised more than a decade ago, when he noticed the fish and shellfish caught by women and children in many countries were not being counted in national statistics. Pauly said the study emphasised how under-reporting of fish catches was making the overall decline of fish stocks worse for some of the poorest people of the world. “We discovered one nation under-reporting its fisheries catches and then realised that this wasn't an isolated case but a problem globally. Everywhere we look, the number of fish being taken from reefs is greater than reported,” he said. “This news is not only shocking but disheartening. Our previous conclusions about widespread overfishing must be amplified,” he told the International Coral Reef Symposium at Fort Lauderdale last month. “The only fish being reported in the national catches are the ones that are traded and the rest are ignored. So the overall picture is wrong.”