Fishing Status of Thailand

Abstract

Marine fishery of Thailand characterized as multi-species and multi-gear fishery. The continuous advances in fishing technology make marine production increasing annually that resulted in depletion of the stocks particularly in the Gulf of Thailand. Most of economically important species has been reported as overexploited or fully exploited. Approximate 90% of marine catch come from large scale fisheries. Trawlers, purse seines, drift gill nets, encircling gill nets regarded as important fishing gears practice. In 1994, total marine production (capture and culture) was 3,150,233 ton, comprised pelagic fish 953,907 ton, demersal fish 287,940 ton, miscellaneous fish 172,591 ton, crustaceans 437,508 ton, mollusk 281,611 ton, trash fish 930,546 ton and others 86,112 ton. The demersal resources are mostly caught by trawl net while pelagic caught mainly by purse seines and gill nets. Among these, trash fish accounted for 40% of total catch, of which more than 30% of the trash is juvenile and unsized economic fish. The major catch of trash fish comes from otter board trawl 75%, pair trawl 15%, purse seines 8%, push net 1%, and the rest is from other gears. The Department of Fisheries has implemented the strategy for responsible fisheries management and development on the basis of conservation and long-term sustainable fisheries in which environmental and ecological management is also taken into account. Fishery's regulations and notification are imposed on a fishery to achieve management and conservation objectives. The regulations that protect particular parts of the stocks are minimum mesh size to protect small individuals, closed season and area to protect juvenile and spawning stock, the restriction of the use of certain type of fishing and methodology in certain area. Other approaches are minimize number of fishing trawl vessel, ban the push net, developments of fishing gear selectivity to reduce by-catch and discard fish, installation of artificial reefs to restore the sea, encourage public awareness in using the resources. Besides government has established two committees, the National Fisheries Policy Committee and the National Committee of the Thai Sea Rehabilitation Program to be responsible for fishery and fishery-related activities.