Seagrass meadows are the fishing grounds of choice for many households in four Indo-Pacific
countries, according to a new study that calls for better-informed management of these often-overlooked marine habitats.
It found that small-scale fishers in 147 coastal villages in four tropical countries — Cambodia, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Indonesia — rely primarily on seagrass meadows, saying these habitats are reliable, suitable, familiar, and accessible. The study, published in June in the journal Ocean & Coastal Management, noted that this finding should prompt a rethink of general perceptions of small-scale fisheries.
“Nearly half of all households we talked to preferred fishing in seagrass over other habitats such as coral, mangroves, open ocean, mud and rock for example,” lead author Benjamin Jones, a doctoral candidate in the department of ecology environment and plant sciences at Stockholm University, said in a statement.
“This was surprising because most people think of reef fisheries as the key tropical small-scale fishery, but we show that its actually engagement in seagrass fisheries that are much more characteristic of households,” Jones added.
Jones and his colleagues analyzed interviews with 1,105 households conducted between 2012 and 2017, where 869 identified as fishers, in areas where both seagrass meadows and coral reefs were present. They found that nearly two-thirds of the fishers used seagrass meadows the most as their fishing ground, either exclusively or as part of multiple options. This was followed by coral reefs, substrates like mud and sand, and deep-water areas, the research found.
The preference for seagrass meadows, they found, included expectations of a big catch and greater fish availability. Many fishers also identified seagrass meadows as being more easily accessible than coral reefs, often without the need for a boat, and less likely to damage equipment such as nets.