Preliminary Studies On Chinese Small-scale Fishery And Its Management

Fisheries are of great importance to human beings, not only supplying food and nutrients, but also providing job opportunities. Directly or indirectly, the livelihood of over 500 million people in developing countries depends on fisheries. 90% of the world's fisheries catches are from oceans and seas, of which most are based near the coast. This is not only because harvesting from coastal areas is more time and energy-saving than in the open ocean, but also because there are much more fish near the coastal shelf. Meanwhile, as the fishermen become older, coastal areas are more suitable places for them to fish than open seas. Therefore, coastal fisheries are vitally important for human beings, especially for the elderly fishers. However, just due to its characteristics of having abundant fish and being easy to get access to, coastal fisheries are more likely to be overexploited.Compared with large and medium scale fisheries, small-scale fisheries have always been paid less attention to by governments and fisheries experts around the world. The focus of fisheries statistics and management approaches is large and medium scale fisheries, which leads to scant information about small-scale fisheries and inappropriate management methods. However, small-scale fisheries are vitally important because this type of fisheries involves a large number of fishing vessels and fishermen. Therefore, considering the importance and difficulties of small-scale fisheries, it is very meaningful to conduct studies on this type of fisheries and its management approaches. This thesis mainly reviews the status quo of small-scale fisheries in China and other countries, and constructs small-scale fisheries management system, so as to offer some suggestions for Chinese small-scale fisheries management.This thesis mainly adopts two types of research methods, i.e., reviewing literature and conducting surveys. The author reads large quantities of Chinese and English materials, including journal articles, reports, thesis, etc; meanwhile, the author conducts surveys of the marine fisheries in Weifang City, Shandong Province, including collecting annual reports and summaries, and interviewing fisheries management bodies and fishermen.This thesis firstly gives a systematical conclusion of small-scale fisheries'definitions and relative concepts. The author suggests that small-scale fisheries in China can be defined as the fishing and its auxiliary activities done by fishermen who use no boats, non-motorized boats or motorized boats less than 44.1kW in China's inland, coastal or offshore waters. Then this thesis reviews small-scale fisheries in Japan, European countries and South Africa, where fishing right is the most important approach in small-scale fisheries management; and then it studies the effect and problems of Chinese small-scale fisheries management approaches, which are involved in the framework of general fisheries management systems; and finally the author tries to construct a management system for Chinese small-scale fisheries.However, there are still some aspects to be further improved. On the one hand, because of the insufficient studies on China's small-scale fisheries, some suggestions offered by this thesis may not be so appropriate and practical; on the other hand, surveys are only conducted in one of the city in Shandong Province, focusing on Yangkou County in Weifang City. Both need to be improved in further studies.