Towards the implementation of an integrated approach to fisheries resources management in Ifremer, France

Analysis of Fishery Resource Management Practices in São Tomé and Príncipe: Perception of the Dynamics of Catches from 1950–2020, Recommendations and Strategies for Future Research

“…Although CPUE has limitations and discrepancies, it is useful for monitoring longterm trends in fisheries, especially when more detailed data and stock assessments are lacking [15,45], where restrictive fishery management actions may be non-existent or inefficient [10,15]. On the other hand, CPUE estimation and its utility depend on the type of effort employed, which is attributed to differences in the catch efficiency of pirogues, fishing methods, and types of pirogues, introducing errors in abundance estimates and patterns of temporal variability [12,45].…”

“…Attempts to regulate local fishing were first implemented by Portugal through the Port Captaincy Service in the 1950s. At that time, a beach manager (literally, chief of the beach) was appointed to supervise fishing activities in each district (São Tomé and Príncipe have seven districts, six in São Tomé and one in Príncipe) along with the 30 main fishing communities that exist on the two islands [10,39,43].…”

“…Fishermen were distributed throughout all districts of the country; the Água Grande district containing 27% and the Lembá district about 26.44% of the fishermen (Figure 2b), with an average of 92% artisanal and 8% semi-industrial fishermen. The number of fishers, however, has increased considerably since 1952 with small fluctuations, reaching its first peak of around 2450 fishers in 2000, followed by a decline to 1563 in 2003, associated with some old artisanal fishing fleets, low motivation on the part of fishers due to lack of fishing inputs on the national market, and the poor abundance of fish during this period [10,[14][15][16]19,33]. In 2005, the number of fishermen increased again to 3233, and in 2007, it reached its second peak of about 5298 fishermen, again showing small fluctuations with slow growth, increasing to 4155 in 2019, with 4011 allocated to artisanal fishing making up 96.5% and semi-industrial fishing making up 3.47%, for a total of 144 fishermen.…”

“…Per capita fish consumption projections indicate that fish consumption is projected to increase on all continents except some countries in Africa, where population growth outstrips fish supply [7][8][9]. With increased knowledge and the dynamic development of fisheries, it has been realized that living aquatic resources, although renewable, are not infinite and need to be properly managed [8,10] so that their contribution to the nutritional, economic, and social well-being of the growing world population, which is expected to reach 10 billion people living on Earth by 2050, can be sustained [2,6].…”

“…To enable the sustainable management of fishery resources, international legal and policy frameworks such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) code of conduct, voluntary guidelines for small-scale fisheries, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 14) encourage the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF) as a guiding principle for management [10,[25][26][27] to maintain or restore "stocks" to the level that can produce Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) [9] and to develop and facilitate the elimination of destructive fishing practices by proposing the establishment of marine protected areas and the integration of marine coastal management [10,25,28,29]. The approach considers that the health of the aquatic ecosystem and associated biodiversity are a fundamental basis for the livelihoods of the fishing community, recognizing the contribution of small-scale fisheries (SSF) to global food security, nutrition, and poverty eradication [6,30,31].…”