2-1 4.1.3 Condition CARIIlll. MAR. STUD •• Si'ECJ.\L Eoll'ION. 2007 llllli Trends in Fisheries Resources 4.I.3.I 0\•erviell' Within the Caribbean Sea, many species of !ish arc under stress !rom over-exploitation amVor habitat degradation, and arc therefore not making an optimum contribution to socioeconomic dl!vclopmcnt of the region. All the major commercially important species and species groups targ\!led by spcci lie fisheries arc reported to be either fully developed or over-exploited. These include conch, which has been placed on the Convention on lntcmational Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) list of threatened species (www.citcs.or!!); lobsters and shrimp; shallow shelf reef !ish; deep-slope !ish and some of the large oceanic pelagic species which arc managed by the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT; CFMC and CFRAMP 2000). It is likely that the status or Caribbean fisheries is similar to that or fisheries globally: the FAO observed in 1993 that over 70% of world fish stocks were either over-exploited, fully exploited, or were in a state of rebuilding artcr being ovcrlishcd. 4.I.3.2 Trends in Fil?fish and In\·ertebralc Landings in the Caribbean Region (19511 2004) Accurate data on trends for !ish catches speci lie to the Caribbean Sea have been dil1icult to obtain because regional Fi\0 statistics arc generally combined with parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Recently, however, new analysis or these data has helped to build up a coherent picture of the slate of fisheries in the CARSEA region. Annual landings of lin fish and invertebrates arc provided in Figure 4.1. They arc based on data from tlJC Sea Around Us Project (SAUP) of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Fisheries Center (http://www.scaaroundus.org). The ligures were reconstructed or reallocated from the larger Wcstcm Central Atlantic Rcgion in the Fishclies database of the FAO (FAO FlSHSTAT), to include only catches !i·om the CLME, the locus of the C ARSEA Project. Individual country data were re-examined jointly by UBC and national sources such as fisheries departments and research institutions in some countries including Venezuela. Cuba. Bc.:lize, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago (Zeller et al. 2003). According to this analysis, !ish catches in the Caribbean generally increased from 84,411 tonncs in I 950 to 482,848 tonncs in 1998, before declining to 40 I ,561 tonncs by 2004 (Fig. 4.1 ). The data suggest that the increased usc of more c11icient fishing gear including purse seines," relative to other gear such as bottom trawls, may have contributed to the larger catches. The bulk of the catch is dominated by the artisanal sardine fishery (mainly "round sardine !Ia") based in Vem:zucla. In terms of landed value, sardines, catfish, shrimp, and lobster arc the leading products, worth about U.S. $600 million in 2004. ·I.I.3.3 Trends in Landings of' Inshore and Ojf.i·Iwrt? Fishl!ries (/980· I999): Cast? StlllZl' · Windll'ard Islands Data on the quantity of !ish landed in any particular year provide only limited inlonnation about the status of stocks in a given sea area. Trends in landings of individual countries or islands rcllcct diJTcrcnces in the level of development of the lishing industry, initiatives to manage stocks through rules on the gear used and/or species targeted, and the overall eflort applied to catching !ish in a specilic area. These !hctors can lead to marked di!1crcnccs between the pattcm of !ish landings observed in particular areas and across the Catibbenn Sea ns a whole. A more informative measure of the condition of the lishcry ecosystem service can be obtained by comparing the siLc of the catch with the e!lort exerted by lishing !lcets or Catch Per Unit of Eflort (CPUE). A recent calculation of eatch-and-c!lort trends in !our of the Windward Islands provides a useful case study for this assessment (Mohammed 2003 ). The data lor the study were reconstructed from published historical documents, material, "grey and recently computerized databases of the fisheries departments of the respective countries: Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. This produced improved information on the catches of particular species, compared with cun·ent data in the FAO database lor the respective island nations. Fishing ellort was represented as the product of the number of boats, the average engine horsepower, und the average number of fishing days per year. The percentage change in these parameters bctwc.:n I 980 (Table 4.1) and 1999 was used to quantify the impacts or fishing on the available resources, for both offshore und coastal waters (Table 4.2). Although the results urc preliminary, some stark changes arc evident during this 20-ycar period. Reconstructed catches declined by 12'Yo in the inshore fisheries of Grenada :!J /\ purse seine is a net which can be <II the bollom using. u lin!.! to t.Jmw together rings, forming the shupc of a bug und trapping the lish. ::!.tGn.!y Litc:mturc refers tn publh:;ltiuns i!>sucd by government, academia, business. and industry, in both print mul clcclrunic fonmHs, btll nut by commercial publishing inwrcsts and wlum.!' publishing is nut the primary businl!ss m:tivity of the organization. -42-