Marine Ecosystem Appropriation in the Indo-Pacific: A Case Study of the Live Reef Fish Food Trade

Ambio

Volumn 32, Issue 7, 2003, Pages 481-488

  Warren Rhodes, Kimberley ^a   Sadovy, Yvonne ^b   Cesar, Herman ^c  

^a NASA AMES RESEARCH CENTER   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

^c INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CORAL REEF; ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT; FISHERY MANAGEMENT; FISHERY PRODUCTION; SUSTAINABILITY;

ASIA; EURASIA; PACIFIC ISLANDS; PACIFIC OCEAN;

ANIMALIA; ANTHOZOA; OCEANIA;

EID: 0345393279     PISSN: 00447447     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1579/0044-7447-32.7.481     Document Type: Article

References (57)

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10. -2 reef in net present value terms. See Cesar, H. 1996. Economic Analysis of Indonesian Coral Reefs. The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
11. Wackernagel and Rees (1996) introduced the concept of ecological footprints to measure the "corresponding area of ecologically productive land and aquatic ecosystems required to produce the resources used, and to assimilate the wastes produced, by a defined population at a specified material standard of living, wherever on earth that land (or aquatic ecosystem) may be located." Rees, W. 1996. Revisiting carrying capacity: Area-based indicators of sustainability. Pop. Environ. 17, 192-215; and Wackernagel, M. and Rees, W. 1996. Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on Earth. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Isld, BC.
12. Wackernagel and Rees (1996) introduced the concept of ecological footprints to measure the "corresponding area of ecologically productive land and aquatic ecosystems required to produce the resources used, and to assimilate the wastes produced, by a defined population at a specified material standard of living, wherever on earth that land (or aquatic ecosystem) may be located." Rees, W. 1996. Revisiting carrying capacity: Area-based indicators of sustainability. Pop. Environ. 17, 192-215; and Wackernagel, M. and Rees, W. 1996. Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on Earth. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Isld, BC.
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18. MEFs can be calculated using the following basic formula: Surface needed to produce the consumed quantity = SC =C/P Consumption of a defined area = C Production per hectare = P Actual productive surface of defined area = AS Marine ecological footprint(MEF) = SC/AS From this definition, derived MEF values are as follows : i) = 1, the city or population is exactly self-sufficient; ii) > 1, resource consumption and/or waste assimilation are not locally self-sufficient, i.e., more surface area is needed than is actually part of the city or population's defined area; or iii) < 1, the region or city is more than self-sufficient and living within its own ecological means. Because waste assimilation services of marine ecosystems are not considered here, our results are likely to be underestimates of the MEFs at all scales.
19. -1.
20. The data sources are: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), FAO website databases: http://apps.fao.org. State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 1998. FAO, Rome. Regional and country fisheries production figures are from FAO Fishstat website database, 1996 and 1997 data. Fish and seafood supply for individual countries are obtained from FAO Agrostat (website) database, FAO Food Balance Sheets, 1997 data. Because 'supply', as defined by FAO, includes losses from storage, transport, processing, etc., we used this measure for total consumption, rather than direct or actual per capita consumption. Population data are from FAO Agrostat website Database, 1997.
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25. -1) are now viewed by fisheries ecologists to more accurately reflect average coral reef sustainable yields (see notes 34 and 35), we adopt this value throughout the text and tables as a precautionary estimate unless otherwise noted but also provide estimates using higher yields in accompanying footnotes.
26. -1.
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28. -1) are assumed (results not shown), the values in Table 1 (columns B to E) would be 2-6 times lower. Even at these much lower levels, with the exception of developing Oceania, most SE Asian and Indo-Pacific countries exceed sustainable coral reef seafood consumption levels. Furthermore, the results in Table 1 (column A) are likely to underestimate consumption, since bycatch from commercial harvesting is not included, and to overestimate biocapacities (Table 1), as we did not exclude any portion of productive coral reef space for species and habitat preservation as recommended by the Brundtland report, World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
29. -1 (e.g., 1.3 Mt total MSY for the Indo-Pacific).
30. Data on marine fisheries are from several different sources: i) food balance sheets 'by main groups of fish species in live weight..." contained in the FAO Fisheries Circular No. 821 Revision 5, 1961-1997 Fish and Fishery Products, World Apparent Consumption Statistics Based on Food Balance Sheets, December 1999, FAO, Rome; and ii) online fishery statistics and database, such FISHSTAT and the Fishery Data Collection in FAOSTAT at http://apps.fao.org and http://www.fao.org/fi/statist. Although these databases represent the most comprehensive and detailed fisheries information available, nonetheless i) serious gaps and conflicting data for many countries exist; ii) statistics for coral reef fish species are not tabulated as a specific category; and iii) statistics for coral reef proxy categories (e.g., for the FAO demersals category) are incomplete for many countries, especially in the Western Pacific. For example, these deficiencies will tend to underestimate coral reef resource consumption, since they do not include i) bycatch, or for many countries ii) subsistence fisheries data or certain types of reef fish consumption (e.g., groupers).
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42. -1.
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55. Marine protected areas represent one management approach widely advocated for coral fish and invertebrate fisheries and for protecting the reef habitat itself.
56. This article is dedicated to the lifelong scientific contributions, dedication and marine conservation efforts of Robert Johannes. The authors thank M. Spalding at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (www.wcmc.org.uk) for coral reef area data. Valuable insights and improvements to the manuscript from Kevin Rhodes, Denise McCorry, Andrew Cornish, Daniel Pauly and an anonymous reviewer were also greatly appreciated.
57. First submitted 22 Jan. 2002. Revised manuscript received 31 March 2003. Accepted for publication 3 April 2003.