Enough About Coral! What About Coral Reef Fish?

With all the talk about coral the past few days, I haven't been paying much attention to the other "reef" parts of the ecosystem. But that certainly was rectified Wednesday afternoon here at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium when the afternoon keynote was presented by fisheries guru Daniel Pauly. Author of over 500 scientific articles, 30 books and reports mainly dedicated to the management of fisheries (including coral reef fisheries), and to ecosystem modeling (including coral reef ecosystems), Daniel Pauly is a walking legend. Did I mention he also coined the phrases "fishing down the food chain," and "shifting baselines?" Yeah, makes you wonder what your doing with your spare time, doesn't it?

But back to coral reef fish.

His presentation, Coral Reef Fisheries: A Re-Assessment of Their Ecological and Socioeconomic Impacts (or at least that was one of his titles... he came with two) offered a lot of to think about. In particular his observations that traditional fisheries management in the Pacific appears to have been sustainable. Why not more conclusive than "appears?" According to Pauly, it's because the fish catch data was not recorded until recently. So all we have to go by is anecdotal reports of historic catch. Pauly puts most of the blame for this data gap on the failure of early anthropologists to record catch values. While effort can be expended to recreate some of this data from anthropologists field notes, he asked why it should be this way. As he put it, a group of social scientists whose speciality is dealing with people are not recording what traditional fishers caught. Perhaps more importantly, these habits are informing an entirely new crop of anthropologists who are continuing in this tradition.

I don't hang around many anthropologists so I have to take his claims on face value. But they certainly seem plausible.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Pauly's talk was when he described what he calls Malthusian Fisheries. Named after the economist Thomas Malthus whose economic theories on population growth inspired Darwin's thinking on natural selection, it speaks to a similar rise and fall of once traditional fisheries.

In traditional fishing communities (it really doesn't matter where in the world you look as the pattern is replicated globally), new generations of fishers (generally fisher MEN) are trained by fishing fathers. These new generations learn the traditions and sustainable practices passed down through the generations. However most coastal fishers today are non-traditional fishers. Migration of farmers and others to the coast to take up coastal fishing were never taught the sustainable traditions. These new fishers do not tend to use traditional gear, seasonal fishing closures, or replenishment areas. As a result, increased coastal fishing effort combined with non-traditional fishing practices drives fish catches down. But why do these non-traditional fishermen continue fishing even in the face of reduced catch? Pauly explained that many are essentially receiving subsidies from wives who often move to cities seeking employment. They then send money back home as supplemental income to offset poor fish catch. The result is a lack of incentive to leave fishing (even if it is a meager living) all the while the coastal resource continues to erode.

A lot to digest, for sure. And made all the more worrisome by one of Pauly's final conclusions that because of a variety of factor (some of which I've mentioned above) we really can't produce a reliable approximation of reef fish catch at this time. Did he leave us with any options? Indeed he did. We need to aggressively increase the rate of MPA growth. The current rate of MPA growth and strengthening is too slow to meet the overwhelming demand for them.

For those of us in the MPA effectiveness biz, it's certainly not a revelation. But it is a further kick in the ass to get our collective acts together and make conservation happen.