Title
Fiji Fishery Resource Profiles. Information for Management on 44 of the Most Important Species Groups
Author(s)
Lee S, Lewis A, Gillett R, Fox M, Tuqiri N, Sadovy Y, Batibasaga A, Lalavanua W, Lovell E
Published
2020
Abstract
In 1985, the Fisheries Division of Fiji’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry produced the “Fiji Resource Profiles”. That 90-page document catalysed the production of similar profiles for most Pacific Island countries. The Fiji profiles informed Government policy on natural resource management for some years. In 1993, the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) was requested by the Fiji Fisheries Division to provide technical assistance in the compilation of information on the important fishery resources of the country. FFA’s Research Coordinator, Andrew Richards, worked in Fiji with Fisheries Division staff in October to November 1993 to collect relevant information. In early 1994, FFA published the 205-page document “Fiji Fisheries Resources Profiles.” The 1994 publication proved to be quite useful. It served to provide summary information on 45 different categories of animal and plant fishery resources to staff of the Fisheries Division, nongovernments organisations (NGOs), students, communities, researchers, and others. The profiles were especially convenient, given the limited availability of documentation on Fiji’s economically important marine and freshwater organisms. More recently, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has supported a portfolio of projects specifically targeted at improving the governance of Fiji’s inshore fisheries. In 2016 Gillett, Preston and Associates interviewed people in the Fisheries Department, NGOs, and fisheries specialists in Fiji to determine specific problem areas that were constraining the management of inshore fisheries. Many people interviewed noted the lack of readily available reference material on the resources that support significant fisheries in Fiji. Accordingly, the Packard Foundation funded efforts to update and enhance the 1994 FFA fishery profiles. This document contains 44 profiles of fishery species groups. Where information is available, profiles have sub-sections on: • The resource › Species present › Distribution › Biology and ecology • The fishery › Utilisation › Production and marketing • Stock status • Management › Current legislation/policy › Recommended legislation/policy • References It is acknowledged that the primary reference for most of the profiles is the 1994 FFA publication. Much of this document builds on the work led by Andrew Richards 23 years ago. It should be noted that these profiles focus on information specific to Fiji. More general information on the groups of resources covered is available from a variety of sources, including FishBase (www.fishbase.org), species identification guides for the Western Central Pacific by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (www.fao.org/docrep/009/w7191e/w7191e00.htm), and the Pacific Community (SPC) Guide and Information Sheets for Fishing Communities in the Pacific (http://www.spc.int/coastfish/en/publications/information-sheets/kit-forcommunities.html). The drawings are courtesy of the FAO. Some comments and caveats are made on the profiles in this document. In this regard, some features associated with fisheries in Fiji should be noted: • In the two decades since the 1994 FFA publication there has been little assessment of inshore fishery resources on a Fiji-wide basis. Although much surveying of resources has been done at the community level by the Fisheries Department (196 sites) and NGOs (about 135 sites), there has been virtually no work from those surveys oriented towards examining the stock status of specific resources across all sites (e.g. the status of trochus in Fiji). • For several decades the Fisheries Department surveyed municipal, non-municipal markets, other outlets and roadsides in the Central, Western, and Northern Divisions for the sales of finfish and nonfinfish and published estimates of those sales in the Department’s annual report. Detailed reporting of catches ceased in 2004 and summary reporting continued to 2013, with a gap for 2011 and 2012. A recent assessment of the market survey in a review of coastal fisheries in Fiji stated “The statistical system that is used to provide coastal fisheries data in Fiji is now no longer functional, primarily due to the prioritisation of scarce government resources. This has resulted in a shortfall of fisheries information”. The end result is that there have been no reliable production data for inshore fishery resources for more than ten years, making it impossible to monitor trends in production. • As to exports of fishery products, the monitoring of inshore fishery exports by the Ministry of Fisheries appears to be quite inaccurate. The Customs Department independently monitors exports using a detailed international system for classifying exports, but the fish categories that are actually declared by exporters and used by Customs are often not very informative (such as “other dried fish” and “fish fillet fresh or chilled”). This results in poor knowledge of exports of specific types of fish, and inadequate data for fisheries management. The above three points tremendously reduces the amount of useful data for compiling these fishery resource profiles. On a different level this paucity of information limits the effectiveness of fisheries management in the country – to address this the Ministry of Fisheries has resurrected its market surveys. However, investments should also be made in export monitoring.
Full Citation
Lee, S., A. Lewis, R. Gillett, M. Fox, N. Tuqiri, Y. Sadovy, A. Batibasaga, W. Lalavanua, and E. Lovell (2020). Fiji Fishery Resource Profiles. Information for Management on 44 of the Most Important Species Groups. Suva, Fiji: Gillett, Preston and Associates and the Wildlife Conservation Society, Fiji, 1-240.

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