Study highlights stressed state of NMI’s coral reef fisheries

 The need to improve the CNMI’s understanding and management of its coral reef fisheries was highlighted in a recently published scientific study that showed troubling findings about the Commonwealth in comparison to other jurisdictions in Micronesia.

“Commercial Coral-Reef Fisheries Across Micronesia: A Need for Improving Management” was a study conducted in 2009 to 2010 and spearheaded by Dr. Peter Houk, chief biologist of Pacific Marine Resources Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving scientific research and monitoring across Micronesia for use in sound resource management planning.

“To our knowledge, this is the only study of its kind in the Western Pacific that’s finally published and peer-reviewed,” Houk said Tuesday.

Houk said the study, a copy of which is available on the PMRI website, www.pacmares.com, focused mainly on spear fishing and was published in Coral Reefs, a global journal dedicated to studying coral reef ecosystems.

Based on the study, the CNMI consistently had the smallest reported capture sizes and/or reduced catch rates for larger, slow-growing species. Houk said the size of a fish that one catches has an “exponential relationship” with the fish’s ability to reproduce more.

He explained that the size of a fish is also directly proportional to its function in coral reefs. “The size of the fish.is directly proportional to its ability to clean. That has implications for how healthy our reefs are.”

The study, Houk said, also revealed that the trophic composition of the CNMI’s catch has fewer large, longer-lived predator fish but is abundant in plankton- and algae-eating fish. According to Houk, composition is directly related to fishing pressure and the result indicates that the fishing community in the Commonwealth is fishing harder on its resources.

Another conclusion is that local fishermen need a favorable environment to generate a good catch. “By favorable environment, I mean a low moon so it’s dark at night and you can do your fishing all night long, and low waves so you can get to the good spots,” said Houk, noting that environmentally-dependent catch success is also a sign of unsustainable fishery.

What’s most striking among their findings, Houk pointed out, is that the data showed that the composition of the catch in the CNMI, where it’s illegal to fish using a scuba tank, has a “tight relationship” with the scuba-derived catches in Guam where it’s permitted.

“This is an indication that a lot of the fish coming into the CNMI market at the time the study was done, the bulk of the fish were very likely to have been coming in from illegal scuba operations,” Houk said.

He noted that the study’s findings altogether validate the diminishing fishery resources in the CNMI, which would significantly impact not just the reef’s health but also the islands’ and personal livelihoods.

Houk called for the need to fish and buy fish responsibly, given that reef fish stocks are not as endless as they appear to be.

“It appears endless but that’s not the case of what’s going on. Fish are getting harder to catch, they’re getting smaller in size, and you have to spend a longer time in order to catch them. I want the public to understand that there’s a trend behind it,” he emphasized.

With the release of the study, Houk expressed hope that the government and non-profit organizations like PMRI will have a “true collaboration” by improving their relationships through open dialogues, and collecting and analyzing data together to work on having sustainable fisheries in the Commonwealth. “The goal is to get management decisions based on science-real facts-to make better changes.”