UBC Faculty Research and Publications

A global fishing gear dataset for integration into the Sea Around Us global fisheries databases Cashion, Tim; Al-Abdulrazzak, Dalal; Belhabib, Dyhia; Derrick, Brittany; Divovich, Esther; Moutopoulos, D.; Noël, S.L.; Palomares, Maria Lourdes D.; Teh, Louise; Zeller, Dirk, 1961-; Pauly, D. (Daniel)

Abstract

Globally, marine fisheries exhibit a great spatial and temporal diversity in the use of fishing gear. However, the development and use of fishing gear for industrial marine fisheries has not been well understood at a global level. Here, we assign all globally reconstructed fisheries catches of the Sea Around Us to a specific gear type. This report documents the results of this gear assignment for each individual fishing country of the Sea Around Us. Globally, we found that bottom trawls and purse seines account for the majority of all gears used, especially when small-scale gears are excluded. We also derive approximate gear type use for small-scale fisheries via an indirect, regionally representative approach. This approach made use of the largest artisanal fishing countries in each region of the world, and assigned the remaining artisanal catches to these countries assuming they are representative of the broader region. The major artisanal gear types worldwide were gillnets and various types of line gear. Changes in gear use over time are presented globally, with all data freely available at www.seaaroundus.org.

Item Media

Item Citations and Data

Rights

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International