Report Of The First Session Of The Wecafc Committee For The Development And Management Of Fisheries In The Lesser Antilles

This publication contains the national reports and technical papers from 14 countries in the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission region on the development and management of fishing around fish aggregating devices, presented at the meeting held in October 2001. The reports and papers are reproduced in the language in which they were presented at the meeting.

The final report forms Part I of the volume, and reviews our knowledge of distributional patterns of commercial invertebrates (conch and lobster), demersal and small and large pelagic fish stocks occurring in the Lesser Antilles subregion of the WECAF Commission area, and on the basis of existing information, places these resources in objective categories from a fisheries management perspective. The main options for management of domestic and foreign fishing are outlined. Part II contains background documents on a variety of topics, including reviews of the existing data base on invertebrates and demersal fish stocks, swordfish and oceanic pelagics. An objective classification of stocks by mode of sharing is presented, foreign fishing activity in the subarea is reviewed, and seasonality and migrations of pelagic fish discussed. An overview of options for shared stock management is also included.

The report includes information on the status of FAD development and fishing activities in the Lesser Antilles. It also includes an account of the group's deliberations and a record of the decisions and recommendations that the group made relative to the objectives of the meeting.

This document assembles three reviews of the marine shrimp and groundfish fisheries of the Brazil-Guianas shelf (northern Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and eastern Venezuela) and one on environmental aspects of the area. Each report contains a number o recommendations for fisheries management, further research and international cooperation in data collection and assessments.

In the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC) area, large pelagics contribute only about 6% of total landings, but are nonetheless significant for many countries. Large pelagic fishes are caught in all WECAFC states, and within the WECAFC region by several distant water fishing nations. However only 19 of 40 WECAFC Member States report catches to FAO. The fisheries range in scale and technological sophistication from artisanal fishers trolling from canoes to modern commercial longliners and purse seiners (mostly from distant water fishing nations). The available information on development of small-scale and large scale fleets targeting large pelagics, indicates a significant trend of increasing fishing capacity in the countries of the WECAFC region. Several species which are not assessed by ICCAT are of considerable importance in large pelagic fisheries in the WECAFC region. Overall, about half the landings of large pelagics in the WECAFC region are from species which are assessed. Existing institutional mechanisms are not adequate for management of shared or straddling fish stocks and those of highly migratory fish, as per the recent UN Agreement. Any such institution must have linkages with extraregional organisations, primarily ICCAT, and, in order to maximise efficiency and avoid duplication, should also be able to deal with shared, straddling and migratory fish stocks other than pelagics, for example, lobster and reef fishes with planktonic early life history stages. WECAFC, with modifications to its statutes, appears to be the most feasible existing organisation to adopt such a role.