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Health Check: Issues and
Problems in the Management of Coastal and Marine Resources
In 1999, Thailand has a total fishery production
of 3,549,230 metric tonnes, worth US $4,444 million (SEAFDEC,
1999). It has been ranked as the 9th fastest growing industrial
fishing country and the largest fishery exporter in the world.
The revenue generated from the national fishery accounted
for 4% of the total GDP, making it a significant sector for
the whole of Thailand.
However, the success of growth and expansion
occurs at the expense of the coastal and marine resources,
because of the biomass fishing approach and the adoption of
fishing techniques, particularly pushed nets, trawlers and
nocturnal anchovy fishing that are exploitative and harmful.
At the current stage, the Thai fishery is in crisis as reflected
by the statistic on the fishing efforts of trawlers produced
by the Department of Fishery. It states that in 1961, the
fishing effort was projected at 258 kilogram per hour, this
dropped sharply to 3 kilogram per hour in 1998.
At present, many juvenile, economically significant
fish species are caught, while the overall size of the catch
becomes less and less. Many rare and important marine species
have also become scarce and are quickly being replaced with
non-economically significant species. On the global as well
as the domestic demand horizons, as marine resources are dwindling,
seafood such as shrimp, fish and crabs are fetching much higher
prices in the market.
The people who have to shoulder the impacts
of the above problems are the 46,630 families of the small-scale
fisher folk who have become increasingly marginalized due
to the declining and degraded state of marine natural resources
(Nasae, 2002).
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