Title : Improving the data collection system in the Maldivian pole-and-line fishery
Abstract:
Pole-and-line fishing for tunas has been carried out in the Maldives for centuries. Until the 1970s the fishery was a subsistence fishery. The fishery began to transform spectacularly following the mechanization in mid 1970s. A major change occurred when the wooden vessels were replaced by larger (>100 ft) fiber glass vessels. Vessels that caught few hundred tuna a day now catch several thousand in a one day fishing operation. Despite the change in the fishery the method of catch-effort data collection has remained the same. The fishery statistics system was introduced in 1959 in which total catches are enumerated. The system was improved in 1970 to record the catch by species which is still in use today. The system relies on the skippers reporting their daily catch to the island offices on a voluntary basis. The island office records the catch and reports it to the atoll office where it is forwarded to the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture. This system worked perfectly well in the earlier periods when the communities were small, and fishing vessels returned to home island to dispose of their catch. But with expansion of fishing areas and boats travelling to multiple atolls and catches landing at multiple landing sites, the system of reporting had rapidly deteriorated. Thus a logbook was introduced to this fishery, and log sheets were collected by the Ministry through the commercial fish buyers. Given the reliable catch and effort data are important for scientific analysis and management decisions Maldives is also piloting a new system of recording fishing effort and catch location from fishing vessel tracks recorded with GPS system. This will be supplemented by log-book data which is proving to be acceptable by the fishermen.
