Marine Fisheries Census 2005 Part I

Abstract

That basic information on fishers, catches, craft and gear, fishing effort, prices and markets is of fundamental importance in marine fisheries governance and planning is a well recognized fact. Also required are information on landings, trends, species ratio and compositions, size at capture, length frequencies, catch per unit effort, yield per recruit, mortality rates and host of other parameters which also contribute to development of appropriate fisheries management interventions. Occasional census (frame surveys) and sample based fishery surveys conducted at regular intervals are to be viewed not as an end but as an important source for a wide range of activities which include estimation of total production, estimation of total value of fish production, price at landing, fishing effort, number of active fishers, human and financial resources etc. Thus fisheries census acquires a role as important as that of human population census, a fact well recognized by all countries who are concerned about managing their fishery resources based on knowledge based information system.