Abstract
Tokelau is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change from both an environmental and economic perspective, whilst being highly dependent on marine resources for dietary nutrition. Industrial as well as small-scale fisheries are present in Tokelau’s waters, with Tokelau itself only participating in small-scale fisheries. Industrial fisheries consist exclusively of foreign distant-water tuna fleets. This study aims to reconstruct and investigate the trends in the domestic small-scale marine fisheries catches, fishing effort, and catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) from 1950 to 2016. We used kWdays as our metric of fishing effort or fishing capacity, estimated using length, motorization and type of fishing vessels. Total fishing effort was approximately 11,900 kWdays in 1950 and increased rapidly after the 1980s with the introduction of larger motorized vessels. Despite evolving fishing effort, catches taken in subsistence fisheries have been relatively consistent at approximately 370 t⋅year −1 , resulting in a reduction of subsistence CPUE from 32.4 kg⋅kWdays −1 in 1950 to 2.6 kg⋅kWdays −1 in 2016. This trend is opposite to that of the artisanal fishery, where CPUE increased since the start of this fishery in 2003, from 1.7 kg⋅kWdays −1 to 2.6 kg⋅kWdays −1 in 2016. Tokelau’s domestic catch is greatly underreported, with reconstructed domestic catch since 2010 being nearly four times larger than the data reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations on behalf of Tokelau. The abundance of reef fishes are predicted to decrease while the abundance of pelagic fishes is expected to increase within Tokelau’s waters due to climate change, likely further altering future fishing practices. The present CPUE analysis, combined with the forecasted effects of climate change, suggests that the domestic fisheries in Tokelau may be on an unsustainable path, highlighting food security concerns, despite the potential for growth in offshore fisheries.
Highlights
The Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) are considered some of the most vulnerable countries to the projected impacts of climatic change (Cheung et al, 2013; ValmonteSantos et al, 2016)
For years where the estimated total catch was greater than the amount reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on behalf of Tokelau (FAO, 2018), we considered this portion as unreported catch
This was followed by a gradual decline in subsistence catches due to declining human population trends and increasing alternative protein imports, such as canned meats
Summary
The Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) are considered some of the most vulnerable countries to the projected impacts of climatic change (Cheung et al, 2013; ValmonteSantos et al, 2016). Among the PICT countries, atoll states that are characterized by low-lying islands are thought to be the most susceptible to changing climates (Woodroffe, 2008), with limited arable land, water supplies and space for habitation (Storlazzi et al, 2015). Both sea level rise and increasingly severe storm surges driven by climate change are predicted to reduce atoll island land area, reducing the space for land-based food production and possible habitation (Storlazzi et al, 2015, 2018). Due to the reliance on marine resources in PICTs, there is a high potential for a resource crisis in the near future as climate change increasingly alters marine ecosystems
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