Thailand's Missing Marine Fisheries Catch (1950–2014)

Overexploitation of marine resources has led to declining catches in many countries worldwide, and often also leads to fishing effort being exported to waters of neighboring countries or high seas areas. Thailand is currently under pressure to curb illegal fishing and human rights violations within its distant water fleets or face a European Union import ban. Simultaneously, Thailand is attempting to reduce fishing effort within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Crucial to these endeavors is a comprehensive knowledge of total fisheries catches over time. A reconstruction of fisheries catches within Thailand’s EEZ and by Thailand’s fleet in neighboring countries’ EEZs was undertaken for 1950-2014 to derive a comprehensive historical time series of total catches. This includes landings and discards that were not accounted for in official, reported statistics. Reconstructed Thai catches from within Thailand’s EEZ increased from approximately 400 000 t·year−1 in 1950 to a peak of 2.6 million t·year−1 in 1987, before declining to around 1.7 million t·year−1 in 2014. Catches taken by Thai vessels outside their own EEZ increased from 52 000 t·year−1 in 1965 to a peak of 7.6 million t·year−1 in 1996, before declining to around 3.7 million t·year−1 by 2014. In total, reconstructed catches were estimated to be nearly three times larger than data reported by Thailand to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Reconstructed Thai distant-water fleet catches were almost seven times higher than the comparable non-domestic catch deemed reported for Thailand. Thai landings from recreational fishing were conservatively estimated for the first time, and while they contributed less than 1% of current catch, they can be expected to grow in volume and importance with increasing tourism. As Thailand takes measures to reduce fishing effort within its EEZs and increases monitoring and enforcement of illegal and foreign fishing, it should take note of the present catch reconstruction as a comprehensive historical foundation that can point to needed improvements in data collection, policy development, and monitoring and enforcement.

[1]  Paul J. B. Hart.  Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries: A critical appraisal of catches and ecosystem impacts , 2017 .

[2]  D. Pauly,et al.  Philippine Marine Fisheries Catches : A Bottom-up Reconstruction, 1950 to 2010 , 2014 .

[3]  B. Halpern,et al.  Fall in fish catch threatens human health , 2016 .

[4]  Read D. Porter.  Fisheries observers as enforcement assets: Lessons from the North Pacific , 2010 .

[5]  D. Pauly,et al.  Worrisome trends in global stock status continue unabated: a response to a comment by R.M. Cook on “What catch data can tell us about the status of global fisheries” , 2013 .

[6]  L. Teh.  Fisheries Centre The University of British Columbia Working Paper Series Working Paper # 2014-16 Reconstructing the Marine Fisheries Catch of Peninsular Malaysia , Sarawak and Sabah , 1950-2010 , 2014 .

[7]  S. Funge‐Smith,et al.  Regional overview of fisheries and aquaculture in Asia and the Pacific 2012 , 2012 .

[8]  D. Pauly,et al.  Reconstruction of coral reef fisheries catches in American Samoa, 1950–2002 , 2006, Coral Reefs.

[9]  Philip Dearden,et al.  Monitoring small-scale marine fisheries: An example from Thailand's Ko Chang archipelago , 2006 .

[10]  R. Naylor,et al.  China's aquaculture and the world's wild fisheries , 2015, Science.

[11]  D. Pauly,et al.  What catch data can tell us about the status of global fisheries , 2012 .

[12]  J. Sarmiento,et al.  Projecting global marine biodiversity impacts under climate change scenarios , 2009 .

[13]  Daniel Pauly,et al.  Re-estimation of small-scale fishery catches for U.S. flag-associated island areas in the western Pacific: the last 50 years , 2007 .

[14]  The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020 , 2018, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture.

[15]  L. Garibaldi,et al.  The FAO global capture production database: A six-decade effort to catch the trend , 2012 .

[16]  T. Pitcher,et al.  Estimating the unreported catch of Eritrean Red Sea fisheries , 2007 .

[17]  Daniel Pauly,et al.  Comments on FAOs State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA 2016) , 2017 .

[18]  D. Pauly.  Theory and management of tropical multispecies stocks: a review, with emphasis on the Southeast Asian demersal fisheries , 1979 .

[19]  W. Cheung,et al.  Climate change impacts on fisheries in West Africa: implications for economic, food and nutritional security , 2012 .

[20]  U. R. Sumaila,et al.  A global estimate of benefits from ecosystem-based marine recreation: potential impacts and implications for management , 2010 .

[21]  D. Pauly,et al.  Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining , 2016, Nature Communications.

[22]  Jennifer Jacquet,et al.  Potential ecological and social benefits of a moratorium on transshipment on the high seas , 2017 .

[23]  D. Staples,et al.  Asian fisheries today : The production and use of low value / trash fish from marine fisheries in the Asia-Pacific region ASIA-PACIFIC FISHERY COMMISSION , 2005 .

[24]  J. Butcher.  The Closing of the Frontier: A History of the Marine Fisheries of Southeast Asia, C. 1850-2000 , 2004 .

[25]  Bapu Vaitla,et al.  Fall in fish catch threatens human health , 2016 .

[26]  Todor Panaĭatov,et al.  The economics and management of Thai marine fisheries , 1987 .

[27]  William W. L. Cheung,et al.  Climate change impacts on the biophysics and economics of world fisheries , 2011 .

[28]  M. Supongpan,et al.  THAILAND: National Report Bycatch management in Trawl Fisheries in the Gulf of Thailand1 , 2010 .

[29]  David Hunter.  Turn of the tide. , 2003, The Health service journal.

[30]  D. Pauly,et al.  Still catching attention: Sea Around Us reconstructed global catch data, their spatial expression and public accessibility , 2016 .

[31]  D. Zeller,et al.  Synthesis of underreported small-scale fisheries catch in Pacific island waters , 2015, Coral Reefs.

[32]  Rainer Froese,et al.  Using global catch data for inferences on the world's marine fisheries , 2013 .

[33]  Nick Kontogeorgopoulos.  Tourism in Thailand: Patterns, Trends, and Limitations , 1998 .

[34]  D. Pauly,et al.  Development of Fisheries in the Gulf of Thailand Large Marine Ecosystem : Analysis of an unplanned experiment , 2022 .

[35]  D. Pauly,et al.  Global catches of large pelagic fishes, with emphasis on the High Seas , 2016 .

[36]  Matana Boonyubol,et al.  Trawl fisheries in the Gulf of Thailand , 1984 .

[37]  T. Pitcher,et al.  Towards sustainability in world fisheries , 2002, Nature.

[38]  D. Pauly.  Fleet-operational , Economic , and Cultural Determinants of Bycatch Uses in Southeast Asia , 2003 .

[39]  S. Martell,et al.  A simple method for estimating MSY from catch and resilience , 2013 .

[40]  Francis W. Zwiers,et al.  Guidance Note for Lead Authors of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Consistent Treatment of Uncertainties , 2010 .

[41]  D. Pauly,et al.  The best catch data that can possibly be? Rejoinder to Ye et al. “FAO's statistic data and sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture” , 2017 .

[42]  Daniel Pauly,et al.  Fisheries: Does catch reflect abundance? , 2013, Nature.

[43]  Villy Christensen,et al.  Fishery‐induced changes in a marine ecosystem: insight from models of the Gulf of Thailand , 1998 .

[44]  J. Bahadur.  The Pirates of Somalia: Inside Their Hidden World , 2011 .

[45]  T. Pitcher,et al.  Estimating illegal, unreported and unregulated catch in British Columbia's marine fisheries , 2005 .

[46]  W. I L L I A,et al.  Large-scale redistribution of maximum fisheries catch potential in the global ocean under climate change , 2009 .