Establishing Fisheries Refugia

[Chris Paterson]

Dear RWG-Fisheries members and colleagues from SEAFDEC,

I've set this forum discussion up to facilitate discussion relating to our activity to establish a regional system of fisheries refugia. Hopefully, we'll all find a few spare minutes to share recent information and experiences over the next 3 months before our next working group meeting in Vietnam.

Regards, Chris .

[Chris Paterson]

Dear Members of the RWG-Fisheries,

It doesn’t seem long since we were on Belitung Island together, but the 9th Meeting of the Regional Working Group on Fisheries is quickly approaching. In addition to the meeting documents and guidance e-mailed to you this week, I have also prepared a general information regarding what we need to do during the upcoming meeting of the Regional Working Group on Fisheries, and to provide you with some recommendations regarding preparatory work that you can undertake in the lead-up to the meeting to ensure that we make this meeting a success. This document can be downloaded by clicking here.

I would also like to take this opportunity to personally invite you all to a dinner hosted by myself at an excellent beach side restaurant I know on the east-coast of Phu Quoc Island. This dinner will be on the evening of Wednesday 11th July. We will sample the strombus snails, swimming crabs, and mantis shrimp that are delicacies of the island. There will of course be other dishes served for the "cholesterol concerned" members and maybe a cold beer or two. Here are some pictures of the hotel where the meeting will be held:

[Chris Paterson]

Dear Members of the Regional Working Group on Fisheries,

I am currently participating in the ASEAN-SEAFDEC Regional Expert Consultation on Future Roles of SEAFDEC in Fisheries Management in Southeast Asia. Next week I will also participate in a SEAFDEC meeting on area-based approaches to fisheries management which aligns very closely with our fisheries refugia activity.

As I am currently away from the office it would be appreciated if you could send an e-mail to me (copied to Khun Saranya: rojananuangnit@un.org) advising if you have received your air tickets yet and any problems you may anticipate with your travel.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Chris .

[Chris Paterson]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Further to my last message, I would also like to encourage each of you to think about activities which you think should be conducted within the framework of establishing pilot fisheries refugia sites in your countries. As you are aware we will need to prepare costings for these in terms of finalising amendments to your MoUs.

It would also be appreciated if you review my guidance relating to the agenda item on developing regional and national plans for the processing of larval fish samples collected as part of MV SEAFDEC 2 research cruises.

Best regards,

Chris.

[Chris Paterson]

Posting this message as a demonstration of the use of the e-forum during the ninth meeting of RWG-Fisheries.

Chris.

[Nygiel Armada]

Hi there. I'm in Phu Quoc
Nygiel

[Chee Phaik Ean]

Hi All in RWG-F,

I got back in one piece to Penang but only after a 7-hour wait at KLIA, ironical isn't it? All the best to all.

Chee

[Chris Paterson]

Hi Ms. Chee and all,

Originally Posted by Chee Phaik Ean

Hi All in RWG-F,
I got back in one piece to Penang but only after a 7-hour wait at KLIA, ironical isn't it? All the best to all.
Chee

Glad to hear you got back in one piece ... but 7 hrs in KLIA certainly isn't what you deserved after your time spent at the helm of the meeting. To help ease the pain I just found this article online regarding the use of the refugia concept in Sarawak, Malaysia - use of the refugia concept in Malaysia. The author states:

Another initiative taken is the fisheries refugia or ‘no-take-zone’ where areas identified as the seasonal or ikan terubuk spawning areas is off-limits to fishermen at certain times. These fisheries refugia undergo specific management measures especially during the species critical stages of life cycle. Fisheries refugia are considered a critical part of fishing management, as the clupeiods are especially vulnerable to the impacts of high-level fishing activities in its spawning areas.

Having read the article my interpretation of the author's use of "no-take zone" is that he is actually referring to a "seasonal closure" in the place and during time of the year in which clupeiods spawn. Regardless of the differences in how terminology is use between our countries, it is great to see the "fisheries refugia" concept being picked up once again.

As a brief aside, Nygiel and I had a chat about the use of the Internet and interactive animations to help raise awareness/understanding of our work. I mentioned that I had recently come across this - Sustainable Fisheries Game Online - and promised to send it on to everyone.

We could easily do something like this which highlights the linkages between habitats and fish stocks (and of course the role of fisheries refugia). Please post any comments and ideas here and I'll get moving on putting a concept together for our consideration.

Cheers for now,

Chris .

[Chris Paterson]

Dear members of the RWG-Fisheries,

Further to my last message, it would be great to hear any suggestions as to how we can improve - http://refugia.unepscs.org/

I'd love to integrate an ocean circulation model to the Google Earth map, with the contour maps of larval fish distribution and abundance as proposed by John. I'll see how I go with this, but any suggestions on who may be able to help would be great.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Nygiel Armada]

Yes Chris, I did play a bit with the "Sustainable fisheries Game on line" and it seems to be user friendly. But maybe some people doing advocacy work may be turned off by the word "Game". What some people in the Philippines are asking our project is for us to come up with short animations of the effects of destructive fishing such as trawls, fine meshed nets or even blast fishing. I am thinking of animations based on actual footages for trawl but I can't seem to imagine how to depict the effect of fine meshed net - which is more or less long term. And maybe some people can be imaginative enough to animate the process of the actual blast and its subsequent ill effects. Anyway those are some requests for support of advocacy work being posed to us at the moment.
Nygiel