| Abstract |
In the area served by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), which includes 22 Pacific Island countries and territories, anchored FADs have been used since the late 1970s. First introduced from the Philippines, via Hawaii, they were quickly adopted by both industrial and artisanal fisheries sectors : in 1984 more than 600 anchored FADs had been deployed in the region. Since these early days, the development of the technique by the industrial and the artisanal sectors have followed parallel paths with little interaction. In the industrial private sector, companies are funding, deploying and monitoring their own FADs. For some fishing companies, using purse seiners and pole-and-line vessels, from the Solomon Islands or Papua-New-Guinea, these FADs have become a necessity. FAD programmes for small-scale fisheries have been almost exclusively run by the public sector, with technical support from regional and international development agencies and financial assistance from overseas funding agencies. These programmes have had mixed successes : becoming an on-going and essential tool in some places like French Polynesia or Guam; or being momentarily suspended, like in Vanuatu or Tonga, because of the lack of funds, partly due to the scarcity of proven economic return to the fishing communities. This document is an attempt to synthesise the current information on these very diverse situations, including technical, economical and social considerations. |
