Edited by Dirk Zeller and Sarah Harper.

DIRECTOR'S FOREWORD

Island countries around the world rely heavily on marine fisheries resources for nutrition (fish are often the primary source of protein for their citizens), revenues and jobs. Indeed, the food security of many coastal communities around the world, particularly in developing countries, depends on the ability to obtain food fish from the sea. Moreover, most fishing by inhabitants of the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific is small-scale, with fish being caught mainly for subsistence or local artisanal purposes. Currently, national fisheries statistics, and the numbers submitted by member countries to the FAO, do not consistently account for the catches of thousands of small-scale fishers. The result of this poor accounting is that official catch records largely underestimate the likely true catch of a country, and hence underestimate the economic and social reliance on marine resources by these countries. By default therefore, small-scale fisheries end up accounting for a substantial component of the Unreported catches as part of global Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.   With improved infrastructure and technology seen over the past half century, our ability to extract greater quantities of fish from the Ocean has increased dramatically. For small island countries, the problem is compounded by foreign fleets operating in their waters, which puts further strain on the resources available for local consumption.   Most developing countries lack the resources to properly monitor their fisheries, yet they are some of the most vulnerable to the effects of overfishing and collapsed fisheries. A more complete estimate of total fisheries extractions is fundamental to more effectively managing fisheries resources in order to mediate potential threats to food security.   This report presents a comprehensive estimate of total marine fisheries extractions in the waters of several island countries in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The reconstruction method used here was developed by researchers at the Sea Around Us Project and has been used to estimate total fisheries catches for a wide variety of large and small countries. The aim of these catch reconstructions is to account for catches of marine fish stocks from the 1950s to the present, thus providing a time series baseline from which future changes in fisheries resources can be assessed. While this catch reconstruction effort is still affected by uncertainties, it provides an improvement over the official statistics currently available for fisheries management and policy development.  

Rashid Sumaila, FC Director