STORY : Frog Farming - a new source of income

"The reason I decided to raise frogs again was due to my attendance at a training course, where I learned about the correct techniques for feeding the frogs and the results were good. The frogs eat less than the chickens and ducks."

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Mr. Norng Piseth, 51 years old farmer in Cambodia

CONTEXT

Tuna fisheries are very important for coastal states of the Atlantic Ocean, and in particular for countries from western Africa and the Caribbean. Tuna are economically important and contribute to food security, and the sustainability of tuna industries is very important for these countries. In recent years, some tuna stocks in the Atlantic, particularly bigeye, have been overfished. Currently no data on tuna growth rates and migration patterns are available, as only data from commercial fisheries are available – which is why this Atlantic Ocean Tropical Tuna Tagging Programme is needed.

OBJECTIVES

• To promote sustainable management of tropical tuna resources in the Atlantic Ocean guaranteeing current and future fishing opportunities - especially for local fishermen. This will contribute to food security and economic growth of the coastal states of the Atlantic. The final beneficiaries of this project are the local fishing communities and operators who depend on tuna fishing, plus consumers of tuna fish.
• To give good advice based on relevant facts on tuna fishing to partner states, and thereby help them to use effective conservation and management measures. This is done through: tagging of tropical tuna to gather data, raising awareness of the tagging and the importance of the data gathering, research and data analysis and trainings of scientists and technicians from Atlantic coastal states.
• To tag at least 120 000 tuna and recover a substantial quantity. When tagged tunas are recaught, the tags they carry provide useful information on tuna growth, natural mortality, movements, stock structure and interactions between surface and longline fisheries. The data collected through the tuna tagging will be used to support stock assessments, research and contribute to the future sustainable management of tropical tuna.
• To increase the capacity of scientists from developing countries and facilitate their participation in the collection and analysis of the data collected through the programme.

RESULTS

• More than 55 000 tropical tuna have been tagged and released – meaning ~45 % of the project target – and more than 10 000 have been recovered in the territorial waters of Azores since the start in June 2016. Scientists and technicians, both men and women, from developing countries have tagged over half of these fish. All the data have been checked and stored in a relational database at the Secretariat of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas.
• Awareness and publicity campaigns promoting the tuna tagging project, tag-recovery reward schemes, and sustainable fishing have been implemented in ten countries. The awareness campaigns focus particularly on persons involved in the fisheries sector; the fishermen, the crews on the boats, the traders and the fish processors. Some activities have also been orientated towards the general public.
• A smartphone application has been developed to collect and submit data from both tagging tunas at sea and tag-recovery. The application allows rapid and effective communication between the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, tagging teams and/or tag-recoverers so problems with data are effectively resolved.
• Scientists, technicians and other relevant stakeholders from developing Atlantic coastal states have been trained in tagging tunas, data collection and transmission and data analysis. The information will then be converted into useful and practical management advice, upon which governments can act.

Testimony

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