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Detective work uncovers under-reported overfishing : Nature News & Comment

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Detective work uncovers under-reported overfishing

Excessive catches by Chinese vessels threaten livelihoods and ecosystems in West Africa.
Christopher Pala
02 April 2013

Local fishermen in West Africa are struggling with reduced catches.

GODONG/ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY/CORBIS

It is a whopper of a catch, in more ways than one: China is under-reporting its overseas fishing catch by
more than an order of magnitude, according to a study1 published on 23 March. The problem is particularly
acute in the rich fisheries of West Africa, where a lack of transparency in reporting is threatening efforts to
evaluate the ecological health of the waters.
We cant assess the state of the oceans without knowing whats being taken out of them, says Daniel
Pauly, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who led the study.
The unreported catch is crippling the artisanal fisheries that help to feed West African populations, he says.

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Fisheries experts have long suspected that the catches reported by China
to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in
Rome are too low. From 2000 to 2011, the country reported an average
overseas catch of 368,000 tonnes a year. Yet China claims to have the

Related stories
Fisheries: Does catch
reflect abundance?

worlds biggest distant-water fishing fleet, implying a much larger haul,

Ocean conservation:

says the study, which was funded by the European Union (EU). Pauly and

Uncertain sanctuary

his colleagues estimate that the average catch for 200011 was in fact

China caught out as

4.6 million tonnes a year, more than 12 times the reported figure (see A

model shows net fall in

colossal catch). Of that total, 2.9 million tonnes a year came from West

fish

Africa, one of the worlds most productive fishing grounds.

More related stories

Liu Xiaobing, director of the division of international cooperation of Chinas

bureau of fisheries, put the yearly overseas catch at 1.15 million tonnes in a speech to the EU last June.
Pauly says that figure would be accurate if it referred to the amount brought back to China, rather than the
total catch. Liu did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
Fisheries scientists find the latest assessment startling.
So thats where my fish were going! says Didier Gascuel
at the European University of Brittany in Rennes, France,
who is a member of the scientific committee that advises
Mauritania and the EU on fishing agreements. Year after
year, Mauritanian populations of bottom-dwelling species
such as octopus, grouper and sea bream have remained
SOURCE: PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS

stubbornly low a sign of over

fishing by bottom-scraping
trawlers, he says. We had no idea the Chinese catch was

so big and of course we never included it our models, he says.

Fishing contracts between Chinese companies and African nations are secret, so to estimate the catch,
Pauly and his team had to do some sleuthing. The picture was further clouded because Chinese companies
sometimes operate vessels flying local flags. So at least ten researchers combined clues from field
interviews, scholarly articles and newspaper and online reports in 14 languages to estimate how many
Chinese fishing vessels were operating in 93 countries and territories. They found many in nations where
China reported no catch. The estimates were averaged to reach their conclusion: China had at least 900
ocean-going vessels, with 345 in West Africa, including 256 bottom-trawlers.
The scientists estimated the catch per country on the basis of an assumed average catch for each type of
vessel. These numbers may not be absolutely exact, but they give the first hint of the magnitude of the
problem, says Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, who was not
involved in the study.
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Other experts are sceptical. The new estimates seem far, far too high, says Richard Grainger, chief of the
fisheries statistics and information service at the FAO. He notes that a previous assessment2 estimated the
total unreported catch in West Africa (by all nations) at 300,000560,000 tonnes a year. That study tried to
identify what was missing from official catch figures with a review of English-language scientific studies.
If the new numbers stand up, renewals of fishing contracts with West African nations could be affected. In
the 2000s, under public pressure, EU fleets stopped fishing in coastal waters off much of West Africa, except
Mauritania and Morocco. They were replaced by Chinese vessels, mostly large bottom-trawlers whose
violations of near-shore no-fishing zones have led to protests.
Gascuel, who helps to determine how many fish can be caught while avoiding population collapse, says that
numbers of octopus and shrimp available to be taken in EU contracts with Mauritania, primarily by Spanish
vessels, were already small. But once the actual Chinese catch is factored in, he says, wed have to
eliminate the Spanish catch.
Ironically, it was Paulys team that 12 years ago found that China had been over-reporting its domestic catch
by at least 6 million tonnes. Pauly says that mid-level bureaucrats in the country often exaggerate their
achievements3.
But he says that Chinas under-reporting of the distant-water catch is the more important problem. It shows
the extent of the looting of Africa, where so many people depend on seafood for basic protein.
Nature 496, 18 (04 April 2013)

doi:10.1038/496018a

References
1. Pauly, D. et al. Fish Fish. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/faf.12032 (2013).
Show context
2. Agnew, D. J. et al. PLoS ONE 4, e4570 (2009).
Show context

Article PubMed ChemPort

3. Watson, R. & Pauly, D. Nature 414, 534536 (2001).

Show context

Article PubMed ISI ChemPort

Related stories and links

From nature.com
Fisheries: Does catch reflect abundance?
20 February 2013
Ocean conservation: Uncertain sanctuary
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07 December 2011
China caught out as model shows net fall in fish
29 November 2001
From elsewhere
Sea Around Us projec

Comments
2013-04-04 10:22 AM
Mike ---- said: At what point is enough, enough?
If you go to China, many people say that stealing intellectual property, natural resources, and
general immoral acts are ok because that's how China was treated in the 1860s-1900s.
The storming and burning of the Old Summer Palace by French, British, US, and Japanese soldiers
was wrong. The Opium Wars were wrong. The mistreatment of Chinese immigrants to the US was
wrong. The unbalanced treaties, the concessions, the world admits it was wrong.
However, when will China grow up and realize that two wrongs don't make a right? How much
payback does China need before it's monstrous appetite for revenge sated? Who determines that?
At what point is enough? Enough?

2013-04-04 01:31 AM
Yiding Zhao said: Is fish caught by Chinese ship and delivered to local population under contract
count as Chinese caught fish or local caught? If it is considered as Chinese caught, reducing quota
to Chinese ship will also reduce local food supply. If it is considered as local caught, do locals in
poor part of world have a right to pay someone to fish for them, No matter whom the contractor is?
This article suggests people in developing countries even do not have the right to "loot" for
themselves. They must pay more money to hire more expensive ships from developed countries and
have less food harvested; even knowing such practice will cause hunger. This is ridiculous.
There is no way of achieving resource sustainability without dealing with resource equality first.

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