Aquatic Pollution and Coastal Management

Unit 13 : Coastal zone and anthropogenic activities

13.6.Fisheries
The state of fisheries is intimately linked to the health of the coastal ecosystems. A coral reef showing signs of degradation due to pollution will not support a healthy fishery. The clearance of mangroves removes important nursery areas of many commercially valuable species, which may consequently not survive to see adulthood. Sport fishing and recreational fishing are becoming important in many areas, often in connection with tourism. Unfortunately, the status of the major commercial fish stocks are, in many cases, not known with certainty because of lack of historical, systematically collected data on catch and effort. The comprehensiveness of current data collection programs also varies from country to country. Because of this, definitive assessment of numbers and sustainable yields for the various fishery resources are not available, although stocks in general are thought to be seriously declining.