Fisheries Monitoring for

Fisheries Management

Monitoring Fisheries in Cabo Delgado

There are three broad habitat types in the coastal waters adjacent to Cabo Delgado area, notably intertidal, coral reef and pelagic, which consequently have different groups of fish species that are captured with different fishing gears. As such species, gears and fishing locations all characterise the fishery types that needed to be surveyed under the Our Sea Our Life project. The fisheries monitoring was designed to address three objectives through undertaking creel surveys to collect fisheries related parameters (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Conceptual framework of the objectives, methodology and parameters of fisheries monitoring

Data is collected on a monthly basis because shorter time series are unlikely to produce reliable estimates. The seasons and weather also affect fish migration, changing the behaviour of fishermen with respect to target species and methods of fishing and this is important in estimating an annual fishing effort. Creel surveys revealed that the coastal fisheries in Cabo Delgado are more complex, and are characterized as being multigear and multispecies. The indicator species that were easy to be identified by the field team and key target species within the specific gears were selected for monitoring. The report is in progress.