The rapid growth in human knowledge of marine ecosystems and their response to human actions over the last few decades cannot disguise the fact that our understanding of these systems is still fragmentary. Various academic disciplines have been pursuing their investigations on components of the marine ecosystem largely independently until very recently, and their efforts still need to be more formally integrated.
To support the proper management of marine resources, fishery reserch has basically concentrated on commercial fish stocks, and the particular problem of measuring stock abundance, migration (routes and rates), reproduction (life cycle and reproduction strategies), species interactions, bio-economic interactions between fisheries, resource-allocation problems, fishing strategy (distribution of effort by area and season with respect to species of fishery interest), and fleet dynamics.
Sustainable development requires rational harvesting and environmental conservation A substantial part of fishery development has proved to be non-sustainable partly because of a lack of research on its environmental implications and optimal strategies. Fishery development must therefore be closely linked to research programmes on environmental preservation. To date, the demand for research has tended only to follow stock depeletion and environmental degradation instead of being Precautionary.
The costs of the fishery research needed to support realistic fisheries management systems has been one of the major difficulties facing developing countries. An unbised resource investigation should place a premium on independent assessment capability International organizations and the bilateral assistance programmes of disinterested States can, however, advise States with limited capabilities undertaking reasource assessments and the needs of small States are particularly relevant to this argument. Such capacity-building is an important element underlying the possibility of achieving sustainable development.
The Study on International Fishery Research (World Bank, 1992) noted that the dominant component of research in the fishery field in developing countries has been, so far, the study of fish biology, and that other disciplines have been relatively neglected. Some forward-looking research priorities in this regard resulted from and April 1994 Expert Consultation on Fisheries Research (FAO, 1994a). Although there have been achievements in the field of stock assessment, capture and post-harvest technology and aquaculture, little attention has been paid to the users of fishery resources. This, despite the fact that the socio-economic problems confronting users are the main factor leading to the over-exploitation of the resource and, ultimately, to the success or failure of management and development.
The research capabilities of developing countries differ widely. The greatest differences are between regions, mainly reflecting differences in the stages of development, differences in governmental expenditures and research priorities, which, in turn, mainly reflect differences in the economic significance of fisheries in national economies. Nevertheless, there are similar patterns of achievement and shortcomings in the conduct of research and the application of results to fishery management and development. Although many fishery research institutions in developing countries are relatively well developed and can provide basic training, many still rely on foreign universities for advanced training. A further problem is that fishery researchers often still have a low status and income in a given national context, have limited facilities and resources, and sometimes have limited access to outside scientific research information.
The Study on International Fishery Research also stressed the need to improve the application of scientific results to fishery development. There remains an appreciable lack of communication between the producers (scientists) and the users (managers) of scientific results; research programmes often do not address the priority problems confronting fisheries; and, in genral, there is a lack of co-ordination between research institutions, fishery administrations and fishery enterprises, and sometimes between fishery research institutions and other relevant scientific research institutions. These shortcomings and difficulties are usually due to the lack of a national fishery development policy elaborated with the participation of all the sectors and interests concerned.
The Study identified four broad areas of research that, if undertaken at the national level, would facilitate the link to international (regional) co-operative research which allows the possibility of sharing expensive equipment and facilities. These four areas are:
Resource conservation and management-covering the management of environmental influences on fishery production, the environmental impact of fishery activities (including effects on human health), the conservation of ecosystems and genetic diversity, and the management and sustainable exploitation of marine resources. In marine capture fisheries, in particular, more research is required on quantitative stock assessment.
Fish productivity-covering the farming of aquatic organisms (aquaculture) and the enhancement of fishery resources; in aquaculture in particular, more research is needed on pond management, feed and water quality.
Fish commodity conversion and utilization-covering all aspects of the conversion of a fishery resource into food: capture; fish handling; processing and marketing; on post-harvest technology, particularly quality control, marketing and consumer protection; so far, very little research has been directed to the development of new fish products of acceptable quality, such as the conversion of the raw material (e.g., small pelagic fishes such as sardine and anchovy) for manufacturing fish meal into economically viable and acceptable products for direct human consumption.
Research is needed on the design and fuel efficiency of fishing vessels
Human linkages-covering the relationship between people and the marine resources they use; in particular, more research is required on the socio-economic aspects of fishing communities, on questions of access to resources, on the incorporation of coastal fisheries into ICAM schemes, and on fishery policy development.
International research could support local research efforts by concentrating on the development of new research theories (such as multi-species models for tropical resource systems) and methodologies applicable to national and regional fishery development; particular attention being paid to the local economic, demographic and ecological factors, including assessment of the implications of global environmental change for fishery resources and their exploitation.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea provides a comprehensive framework for international marine research. The desiderata are provided for under the Convention in Articles 239 (facilitating marine scientific research) and 242 (promoting international co-operative research). Although the consent of a coastal State is needed for marine research within its EEZ, under the Convention, a coastal State may only with hold its consent on well founded technical, legal or political grounds admissible to the international community as a whole.
Cooperative research, as well as technical co-operation programmes, must have clearly identified objectives, responsibilities, priorities and deadlines, and be integrated with the relevant national fishery management and development policies and plans. Within a cooperative research programme it may be essential, and certainly will be cost effective, if research were carried out by one research vessel in all the EEZs containing the resource of concern (in order to reduce the time-consuming need for calibration of trawl or acoustic fish-finding equipment if two or more research vessels are required). This type of co-operative arrangement, with scientists from all the States concerned on board, should be facilitated.
Uncertainty is high in the marine environment and the cost of this uncertainty to development is substantial. Research aimed at reducing the uncertainty facing decision-makers means developing the information/data base and tools (e.g., computer simulation models) for risk analysis as an aid to decision-making.
Nevertheless, there is a widespread recognition in developing countries, as well as in development (donor) agencies, of the need to strengthen national research capabilities, hence to increase national self-reliance in this field, particularly since the research must be specific to the local (national) fishery species and ecosystems, and to the local socio-economic and marine policy context.
Although marine resource management should be based on the best scientific evidence available, it also requires governmental and local coastal infrastructure, systems of information diffusion, and consultation between parties concerned. This reflects the fact that, although there is often considerable information available, major changes are still occurring in our perception of the factors that control the abundance of living organisms in the wild that require that the above-mentioned systems be adapted to local conditions.
It needs to be emphasized that, for the proper conservation of resources exploited in common within two or more EEZs, a common research framework, involving exchange of data on catches and fishery survey results, is an essential precondition to sound management, and should be incorporated in the framework of an agreement on the exploitation of the resource under joint study. The negotiation of joint fishing agreements and the designing of appropriate development or management schemes also require an adequate national resource survey capability.
Trained human resources are essential to resource management, which requires, inter alia; multi-disciplinary expertise on fishery resource assessment; bio-economic and socio-economic analysis; management techniques; fishing technology, marketing and quality control; resource monitoring; fishery surveillance; and fisheries legislation. Some governments have made considerable efforts to acquire trained human resources and to strengthen their national expertise through training, study tours and scholarships for young scientists and administrators. However, international organizations need to organize regional training courses in these fields, and these courses, as well as other forms of training, should be reviewed regularly to ensure their effectiveness and relevance to needs.
Although financial and manpower resources are limiting factors for many developing countries, this is not an unsurmountable obstacle if international agencies recognize the importance of marine research to the proper management of marine resources.
Adequate funding of national institutes concerned with living marine resources is essential and, for the larger coastal States, should not be neglected in favour of one or a few centres of excellence in the region that have no direct responsibility for management of specific marine resources. The maintenance of a list of experts within a region, and TCDC arrangements, may be more cost effective for developing countries and ensure better application of the available scientific advice to the evolution of the relevant socio-economic activities than using experts exclusively from the developed world.
The application of new technology to vessel and gear development has improved safety and the effectiveness of individual fishers, but has often had side effects on other resources captured incidentally by unselective gear. The introduction of new technology has also increased pressures on resources and environment and, especially when associated with industrial-scale operations, may be capital-intensive, energy-inefficient, and more likely to support export markets than to satisfy local requirements for protein. Small-scale fisheries are, however, becoming progressively more effective as a result of the introduction of new technology. They now enjoy a wider sharing of the benefits of marine resource exploitation, and greater, though still limited, employment opportunities in the primary sector, as well as in community-based processing and marketing opportunities in coastal areas. The benefits from marine resources need to be spread more evenly in the chain between harvesters and consumers, however, and the traditional role of women in the processing and marketing must be more widely emphasized.
The resilience of resources and of coastal's communities can be increased by reducing dependence on single resources. Diversification of fishing technologies, with seasonal or part-time revenues from fish processing, aquaculture, tourism and small-scale farming, will all better allow the marine resources to survive in years of low resource abundance than a large work force of full-time fishers. The unthinking application of new technologies in a non-precautionary fashion (see Hey et al., 1991) can be a major source of controversy and conflict with proper resource use, and the equity rights of those already in the fishery.
Adequate monitoring of the state of stocks and their environment is essential for proper resource management and conservation, but poses specific problems of sampling marine resources whose state, by and large, can only be determined indirectly. Often, an undesirably high degree of uncertainty can only be reduced (but never eliminated) by significant expenditure on technology-intensive research, of which the systematic, regular use of research vessel, fishery monitoring and statistical systems are the principal components.
The monitoring of commercial catches requires an effective network of national and regional services for the collection of statistics and the establishment of data-bases on landings by species and sizes, on fishing effort by gear type, an up-to-date register of vessels by size and main characteristics, information on the number of registered fishermen, and on the main socio-economic forces operating in the fishery sector.
Direct sampling of marine populations by trawl or acoustic surveys, and oceanographic research, both require a major investment in research vessels and scientific equipment, skilled manpower, and the maintainance of a permanent research team charged with this task. The conversion of their advice into practical management measures requires input from the fishing industry.
In the case of many stocks that migrate or disperse across maritime boundaries, the need for co-operation in management poses a further international dimension of complexity to management, especially if third parties or high-seas fisheries are exploiting the same fish population in adjacent international waters.
Inferences on marine resources may be obtained from the state of the marine environment. This requires interdisciplinary research between oceanographers and fishery workers, physicists, geologists, chemists, meteorologists and many others, with the objective of reducing the uncertainty associated with management of susceptible environments and systems, and of assisting in fishery forecasting. Efforts should also be made, at national and regional levels, to improve the identification, monitoring and protection of critical habitats important to living marine resources. Such geographical information is increasingly being integrated and displayed within Geographical Information (GIS) Systems.
The state of fish stocks may often be inferred from variations in environmental parameters known to be related to fish abundance; the data gathered by the above-mentioned surveys may be usefully supplemented by, for example, remote sensing and oceanographic/meteorological data. The equipment involved is costly and most laboratories in developing coastal countries have insufficient means to monitor adequately the resources of their Exclusive Economic Zones. Countries sharing common problems or interests should ideally, either directly or through an international agency, pool their skilled manpower and research vessesl. This approach has already been facilitated by various international programmes, and these multilateral initiatives deserve full support from funding agencies. There is a need to place increased emphasis on ecological modelling in relation to fisheries and their environment, so as to improve prediction of variations in abundance and distribution; this implies greater use of increasingly low-priced computing equipment in the fisheries and oceanographic institutes of developing countries, as well as greater access to specialized software.
