The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean is updating reconstructed catch estimates for Australia and East African countries.

Attribution for photo:
Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/parked-sail-boats-on-body-of-water-3989845/

The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean research group, led by Professor Dirk Zeller at the University of Western Australia, is working as part of a global effort to update the reconstructed catch data for countries around the world.

To help in this effort, we will update catch data reconstructions for marine fisheries from the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of Australia, as well as Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique for the 2011-2022 period. Catch reconstructions complement the official reported data records with best estimates of catches that are not part of reported datasets. These may include estimates for discarded catches, as well as components of small-scale and non-commercial fisheries, such as recreational or subsistence catches.

Estimates will be informed by all available data and information sources, and may contain higher uncertainties than officially reported catches. Stay tuned for updates during 2025.  

Key background literature related to catch reconstructions and global fisheries data include the following:

Zeller D, Palomares MLD and Pauly D (2023) Global fisheries science documents human impacts on oceans: The Sea Around Us serves civil society in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Marine Science 15: 147-165. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-030322-113814   

Zeller D and Pauly D (2018) The ’presentist bias’ in time-series data: implications for fisheries science and policy. Marine Policy 90: 14-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.01.015

Pauly D and Zeller D (2016) Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. Nature Communications 7: 10244. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10244

Pauly D and Zeller D, editors (2016) Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries: A critical appraisal of catches and ecosystem impacts. Island Press, Washington, D.C. xvii + 497 p.

Zeller D, Palomares MLD, Tavakolie A, Ang M, Belhabib D, Cheung WWL, Lam VWY, Sy E, Tsui G, Zylich K and Pauly D (2016) Still catching attention: Sea Around Us reconstructed global catch data, their spatial expression and public accessibility. Marine Policy 70: 145-152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.04.046