Population change in fishing communities: Implications for fisheries resources and the coastal environment

Increase in the number of fishers as a result of population growth and migration to coastal fishing communities is often regarded as a contributing factor in the overexploitation of local fisheries resources and deterioration of the coastal environment. A better understanding of the demographic and social dynamics of coastal fishing communities should help develop policies to achieve a sustainable use and conservation of fisheries resources and the coastal environment; it could also help formulate population policies that are sensitive to the specific character of fishing communities, where applicable.

To contribute to such an understanding was the goal of an FAO project, "Strengthening of research and training on population and development dynamics of rural fishing communities" (with UNFPA funding). Under this project, macro-level desk studies and field surveys at community level were conducted in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Senegal and Tanzania. This note summarizes the conclusions of the country studies and of their comparative analysis.

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The full report is available as FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 403: "Demographic change in coastal fishing communities and its implications for the coastal environment. Findings of an interregional study", by Uwe Tietze, George Groenewold and Alain Marcoux. Rome, 2000.

FAO Fisheries Department