Artisanal fishers in small island developing states and their perception of environmental change: the case study of Mauritius

Chandani Appadoo; Riad Sultan; Monique Simier; Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur; Manuela Capello

doi:10.1007/s11160-022-09735-6

Artisanal fishers in small island developing states and their perception of environmental change: the case study of Mauritius

Rev Fish Biol Fish. 2022 Nov 6:1-18. doi: 10.1007/s11160-022-09735-6. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Chandani Appadoo¹, Riad Sultan², Monique Simier³, Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur², Manuela Capello³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biosciences and Ocean Studies and Pole of Research Excellence Sustainable Marine Biodiversity, Faculty of Science, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius.
² Department of Economics and Statistics, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius.
³ MARBEC, University of Montpellier, CNRS, Ifremer, IRD, Sète, France.

Abstract

Small island developing states (SIDS) are highly dependent on coastal marine resources. Artisanal fishers in SIDS currently face multiple stressors related to global environmental change. Considering Mauritius (South Western Indian Ocean) as a case study, this paper characterizes artisanal fishers in SIDS and assesses their perception of global change using the Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) approach. A semi-structured survey method was used to interview 247 fishers from all around the country. Artisanal fishers used multiple fishing areas and gears, with half of the fishers using Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). Six main groups of fishers were identified according to their fishing strategies, which reflected different target species in their reported catches. The majority of fishers reported lower fish abundances and fewer species now compared to 10 to 15 years ago. All groups of fishers observed environmental change over the same period. Such ecological knowledge highlights the exposure of fishers to stressors induced by environmental change. The characterization of the groups of fishers and their fishing strategies will be useful to better evaluate adaptation strategies and support management measures to face global environmental change.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11160-022-09735-6.

Keywords: Climate change; Fishing strategies; Indian Ocean; Local ecological knowledge; Small scale fishers.

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