内陆渔业

An analysis of historical national reports of inland capture fisheries statistics in the Asia-Pacific region (1950-2007)

Overview of inland fisheries
17/07/2009

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the apparent trend in inland capture fishery production in the Asia-Pacific region since 1950 according to FAO statistics is reflective of the growth in inland fisheries or whether it is influenced by changes in statistical reporting practices.

The objective of this analysis was to identify large changes (between years) that are significant for a reporting country and to investigate whether these changes also affect the regional change of that year (for the countries of the Asia-Pacific region). An analysis was undertaken, albeit making several unsubstantiated assumptions, which provided indications that reporting practices have indeed changed and that historical catches were probably higher.

The review suggests that the regional trend of continually increasing production may be misleading and hides a period of limited growth in production. The effect of the trend line when compared against growth in populations of the countries reviewed indicates that per capita fish availability rose up to a peak in 1975, but subsequently declined until the early 1990’s. This has more recently started to increase again, possibly due to a number of factors particularly stock enhancement programmes.

The results presented in this study have implications for policy and our understanding of the status of inland fisheries in the region, as the review concludes that even where figures are adjusted upwards, these may still not be indicating increasing fishery production in some countries, but rather, the readjustments are reflecting previous systematic under-estimates and that it is possible that some inland fisheries may still have a declining trend. 

Lymer D. & S. Funge-Smith (2009). An analysis of historical national reports of inland capture fisheries statistics in the Asia-Pacific region (1950-2007). FAO Regional Office for Asia and Pacific. RAP Publication 2009/18, 18 pp.