Improved coastal environment monitoring for better fisheries management

Thursday 19 May 2011, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) headquarters, Noumea, New Caledonia

The Coastal Fisheries Science and Management Section of SPC conducted a workshop in Nadi, Fiji Islands from 25 to 30 April entitled: ‘Basic monitoring needs for effective management of coastal fisheries and resources for Pacific Island countries and territories’. The main objective of the workshop was to identify the fisheries management questions that need answering at community and government levels and the monitoring approaches and techniques that are needed to answer these questions.

The workshop was attended by a selected group of participants from regional and sub-regional organisations, and representatives from American Samoa, Marshall Islands, Fiji islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu — countries that are actively implementing monitoring programmes and working in the area of coastal fisheries or coastal environment monitoring.

The participants also discussed the survey or monitoring techniques that could be used, taking into account the cost of the various techniques and the capacity of the countries to use them.

The outcomes of the workshop were:

• a list of management questions that need answers at community and government levels;
• appropriate monitoring approaches to answer these questions ;
• an understanding of what information needs to be collected and who will collect the information .

The workshop outcomes will assist the Coastal Fisheries Science and Management Section to design survey methodologies, manuals and databases to be promoted through the SciCOFish project, which funded the workshop in response to one of the key recommendations of a workshop held in November 2010, organised by the Community-based Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management.

For more information, please contact Ian Bertram, SPC’s Coastal Fisheries Science and Management Adviser and see SciCOFish Meetings’ page .