There was consensus among the participants that over-exploitation of shrimp resources and the capture of juvenile fish were the main problems to be addressed in the project.
Juvenile shrimp are harvested in some countries and such a practice is considered non-sustainable.
In many countries turtles are caught incidentally in shrimp trawls. Many counties, however, claimed that the problem with turtle bycatch was insignificant. Cameroon reported on some incidental catch of seacows in their shrimp trawl fishery. Several participants mentioned that there were many other sources of incidental turtle mortality than shrimp trawling.
The impact of trawling on the bottom habitat is not well documented in any of the participating countries. It was agreed that this issue should be considered within the project, but that factual information to be generated in this preparatory phase will be rather limited. Several participants argued that shrimp trawling in nearly all cases is conducted on smooth sandy/muddy bottom where few organisms/objects are effected. Another feature of shrimp trawling for particularly peneaid shrimp is that it often occurs outside large river outlets where sedimentation will override any disturbance by trawl gear. A main contribution in this phase might therefore be to collect information about the bottom conditions where shrimp trawling is conducted in each country.
