WCS 3-Sentence Science

Fish Recover When Destructive Fishing Ceases

October 4, 2019

CREDIT: WCS INDONESIA PROGRAM

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by Shinta Trilestari Pardede of the WCS Indonesia Program on the impacts of destructive fishing methods.

1. Researchers looked at herbivorous reef fish in Karimunjawa National Park in Indonesia to investigate whether areas subject to a restrictive management regime sustained higher biomass over seven years compared to areas where moderate and permissive regulations apply.
2. Overall herbivore biomass doubled in 2012 compared to 2006–2009 and remained high in 2013 across all management regimes suggesting it emerged in response to a park-wide cessation of fishing with large drive nets known as muroami.
3. The study underlines the importance for breaking the cycle of resource depletion and low compliance to zoning, thus alleviating the resulting threats to food security and ecosystem integrity.

Study and Journal: “Herbivorous fish rise as a destructive fishing practice falls in an Indonesian marine national park” from Ecological Applications
WCS Co-Author(s): S. Pardede, WCS Indonesia Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.