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Smith, Mica Riley Xiao

University of British Columbia

The only official and global fisheries catch dataset in existence is that being annually compiled and distributed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since 1950. However, the Sea Around Us team has identified, documented, and corrected inconsistencies in the global marine fisheries catch data published by FAO by performing ‘reconstructions’ of marine fisheries catch time series for all coastal countries and territories of the world. These reconstructions demonstrate that globally, the official marine fisheries catch is underreported by 50%. While the Sea Around Us currently does not offer a database for inland fisheries catches, the peer-reviewed literature does contain examples of inland fisheries catch underreporting. Therefore, this thesis addresses the underreporting of inland fisheries catches by producing mostly-partial inland fisheries catch reconstructions covering the years 1950 to 2019 for all countries and territories of the African continent, as well as 48 non-African countries and territories. The main results of this thesis are that the inland fisheries catch of the assessed countries and territories are underreported by 50% or more in 87% of cases, and also that the inland fisheries catch of African countries and territories are underreported by a factor of 2.4 from 1950 to 2019, although the reliability of reported catches has improved throughout the analysis period. These results are consistent with those of independent, peer-reviewed studies of inland fisheries catch underreporting. Moreover, these results demonstrate that African marine and inland fisheries catches are similarly underreported, while, overall, there is greater variation in underreporting of inland fisheries catches. These results support the notion that, like marine fisheries, inland fisheries are critical to humanity, and are similarly deserving of attention.

Text

2023-10-24

Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86323

Oceans and Fisheries

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/