Bioeconomic Approach for Assessing Status of Trawl Fishery in the Straits of Malacca

Abstract

The Straits of Malacca provides half of Malaysia’s total marine fish and seafood supply. Due to depleted fish stock, the Malaysian Government has established a comprehensive legal framework to reduce overfishing in the Straits over the last five decades. However, there are limited scientific studies on the current status of stock recovery. This paper aims to use bioeconomic approach to determine the current trawl fishery status in the Straits. Various statistical tests showed that the Clarke-Yoshimoto-Pooley model was better than the Schnute model in predicting and thus used to estimate the crucial bioeconomic parameters. The current yield and standardised effort of 239,692 tonnes and 931,692 standard fishing days were very close to the estimated biological maximum sustainable yield (239,915 tonnes) and above 18 % of the standardised effort (763,649 standard fishing days) to achieve it. The maximum economic yield was estimated at 201,542 tonnes while the corresponding standardised effort was 396,799 standard fishing days indicating serious economic overfishing in the Straits. If the current effort can be reduced by 57 %, fish biomass and economic rent will increase by 97 % and 835 %, respectively. A price sensitivity analysis predicted that demand-pull fish price inflation could exacerbate the overfishing problem, particularly under unrestrained environment. A 50 % increase in price could lead to a 132 % increase in fishing effort from the base case. The findings of this paper provide valuable insights for fishery managers to refine their existing fishery management program to achieve sustainable fishery for the future.