Sustainable Fisheries

Special collection

Worldwide, small-scale coastal fisheries contribute significantly to providing food, employment, and incomes to many very poor people. But these same fisheries, and the ecosystems upon which they rely, are under increasing threat from a combination of climate change, pollution, over-fishing, and the exploitation of resources.


Fisheries management has been a major component in trying to address some of these issues, but with limited global success. The potential of fisheries, if managed well, is considerable but what form that potential will take will depend on how and why fisheries are managed.


This collection of reports and presentations explores just this question, describing some of the challenges faced by small-scale fisheries worldwide and their efforts to address these challenges and improve the health and well-being of the people who are dependent on these threatened environments.


The collection brings together the "grey literature" of the field, valuable work that is not readily available through academic journals and databases but is instead spread across dozens of organizational websites. This set of reports was initially identified as part of a synthesis review of key lessons commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation's Program on Oceans and Fisheries. We are pleased to make it more easily available for others to use and build on and encourage researchers and practitioners to add relevant work to the collection.

Read more +

Search this collection

Clear all

3 results found

reorder grid_view

Caribbean Marine Protected Areas Project: The Role of Marine Protected Areas in Fisheries Management and Biodiversity Conservation in Coral Reef Ecosystems

December 31, 2001

This report summarizes the Caribbean Marine Protected Areas Project executed by ICLARM from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2001. The purpose of this project ws to address the issue of decreased catch rates and declining income per unit of fishing effort in Jamaica's artisanal fisheries. This is an issue that is not unique in Jamaica. It is faced by fishers in most of the countries surrounding the Caribbean. The absence of any significant fisheries management, combined with excessive population densities and a lack of employment opportunities, has led to increasing fishing effort in Caribbean coastal fisheries, resulting in recruitment and growth overfishing. Decreased catches are shared by ever-increasing numbers of fishers. The goal of the project has been to generate improved and sustainable livelihoods for communities dependent on coral reef fisheries in target areas by devising strategies for improved management of coral reef resource systems, including the use of marine protected areas. Research activities included comparative socio-economic and biological surveys of commercial fisheries in the British Virgin Islands and in North America (Caribbean)-Jamaica; studies of comparative recruitment rates of coral reef fish and systems for small-scale aquaculture based on the capture of pre-settlement reef fish. Rectangular escape gaps were evaluated as a management tool for Antillean trap fisheries. Changes in the stocks of fish in the Discovery Bay Fisheries Reserve in Jamaica were monitored for 62 months following its declaration and ecotropic models were developed for Discovery Bay and for Hans Creek, a proposed marine protected area in the British Virgin Islands. It was shown that the adoption of rectangular and diamond-shaped escape gaps, that release slender deep-bodied fish, would significantly reduce the effects of overfishing in Caribbean reefs. Progressive increases in total harvests of about 42% are possible on the north coast of North America (Caribbean)-Jamaica; probably accompanied by even larger increases in the value of the trap catch and improvements in harvests of spear and hook-and-line fisheries as a result of improved recruitment rates.

Reefs at Risk: A Map-Based Indicator of Threats to the Worlds Coral Reefs

January 1, 1998

This report presents the first-ever detailed, map-based assessment of potential threats to coral reef ecosystems around the world. "Reefs at Risk" draws on 14 data sets (including maps of land cover, ports, settle-ments, and shipping lanes), information on 800 sites known to be degraded by people, and scientific expertise to model areas where reef degradation is predicted to occur, given existing human pressures on these areas. Results are an indicator of potential threat (risk), not a measure of actual condition. In some places, particularly where good management is practiced, reefs may be at risk but remain relatively healthy. In others, this indicator underestimates the degree to which reefs are threatened and degraded.Our results indicate that:Fifty-eight percent of the world's reefs are poten-tially threatened by human activity -- ranging from coastal development and destructive fishing practices to overexploitation of resources, marine pollution, and runoff from inland deforestation and farming.Coral reefs of Asia (Southeastern); the most species-rich on earth, are the most threatened of any region. More than 80 percent are at risk (undermedium and high potential threat), and over half are at high risk, primarily from coastal development and fishing-related pressures.Overexploitation and coastal development pose the greatest potential threat of the four risk categories considered in this study. Each, individually, affects a third of all reefs.The Pacific, which houses more reef area than any other region, is also the least threatened. About 60 percent of reefs here are at low risk.Outside of the Pacific, 70 percent of all reefs are at risk.At least 11 percent of the world's coral reefs contain high levels of reef fish biodiversity and are under high threat from human activities. These "hot spot" areas include almost all Philippine reefs, and coral communities off the coasts of Asia, the Comoros, and the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.Almost half a billion people -- 8 percent of the total global population -- live within 100 kilometers of a coral reef.Globally, more than 400 marine parks, sanctuaries, and reserves (marine protected areas) contain coral reefs. Most of these sites are very small -- more than 150 are under one square kilometer in size. At least 40 countries lack any marine protected areas for conserving their coral reef systems.

A Handbook of Rapid Appraisal of Fisheries Management Systems (Version 1)

January 1, 1996

It is widely acknowledged that fisheries management has been characterised more by its failures than its successes. Reviews usually attempt to identify what is 'wrong' with fisheries management and offer suggestions as to how to put it right. However, from an alternative perspective, it is also possible to identify what is 'right' with fisheries management in particular instances and to offer suggestions as to how to build upon such success. A recent World Bank funded project 'Study of Good Management Practice in Sustainable Fisheries' examined the issue of success from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. In this first policy brief, the concept of 'success' is explored as a basis for the presentation of empirical findings based on a series of global case studies.