Seychelles, a baseline for a Blue Economy
St. Joseph Atoll, Seychelles. Photo by Thomas P. Peschak | National Geographic Creative
New research by the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, in collaboration with Hanna Jabour Christ of the Marine Futures Lab at the University of Western Australia investigated the domestic marine fisheries catch for the Republic of Seychelles from 1950 to 2017, in the context of the novel blue bonds initiative, which help finance sustainable use of marine resources and advance ocean-based economic activities.
Figure 1 – Seychelles | The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Republic of Seychelles.
The estimated domestic catch was 1.5 times the catch amounts reported by the Seychelles to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Artisanal Catch Per Unit Effort declined over time.
Despite the paramount importance of the non-commercial subsistence fisheries to local food security, this sector is rarely monitored and reported by the government.
We conservatively estimate the proportion of take-home catches for personal and family consumption and emphasize the need for strong monitoring that also includes non-commercial fisheries sectors.
Given the historical value of the small-scale fisheries as demonstrated here, all small-scale sectors should be highlighted in the blue economy roadmap of the Seychelles along with future research and strong regulations.
Figure 2 - Domestic Catch | Total reconstructed domestic catch for Seychelles from 1950 to 2017 within Seychelles’ EEZ by fishing sector. Landings as reported by FAO on behalf of the Seychelles are represented as the black overlay line. Industrial large-scale tuna and billfish fisheries are excluded and addressed separately in the global spatial tuna database (Coulter et al., 2020).
Figure 3 - Catch Composition | Taxonomic composition of reconstructed total catches for Seychelles for 1950–2017. The category “Others” consists of 82 additional taxa with minor contributions to the overall catch.
See the Seychelles News Agency coverage of the research here.
Citation: Christ HJ, White R, Hood L, Vianna GMS and Zeller D (2020) A Baseline for the Blue Economy: Catch and Effort History in the Republic of Seychelles’ Domestic Fisheries. Frontiers in Marine Science 7:269.
The publication can be found at doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00269
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank F. Le Manach for the preliminary catch data reconstruction for the Seychelles’ EEZ on which the present contribution builds.
Funding: This was a contribution of the Marine Futures Lab and the Sea Around Us—Indian Ocean, both are research initiatives at the University of Western Australia. The Marine Futures Lab was supported by the Ian Potter Foundation, the Pangaea Initiative, Parks Australia, and private philanthropy. The research of the Sea Around Us initiatives were supported by the Oak Foundation, the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, the Marisla Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the MAVA Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Oceana and the Minderoo Foundation.