A new report by the FAO suggests that by reducing fishing capacity and limiting access to shrimp fisheries, problems with overfishing, bycatch and seabed destruction are likely to be managed.
The new global survey reviewed the problems of shrimp fisheries in ten selected countries including Australia , Cambodia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Madagascar, Nigeria, Mexico, Norway, Trinidad and Tobago and USA.
Jeremy Turner, Chief of the FAO Fishing Technology Service said that a precautionary approach would help to mitigate some of the adverse effects on the environment caused by shrimp fishing.
According to the report, Australia's prawn fisheries were amongst the best managed fisheries in the world in terms of fishers' participation, management of bycatch, reduced discards and the use of property rights in management.
The report found that trawling, especially in tropical regions, produced high amounts of bycatch that was either discarded or kept on board. It acknowledged the difficulty in reducing bycatch in small fisheries but said that future bycatch reduction should focus on medium and large scale fisheries.
The reported also pointed to weak governance in dealing with fisheries. "These factors, which can be encounter in all fisheries across the world, are largely responsible for the lack of success, rather than any inherent unmanageable qualities of shrimp fishing gear or practices."
