Academic literature on the topic 'Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project'

Abstract In this essay, I review nearly six decades of a career in marine science and fisheries considering scientific contributions, successes, failures, and changes in my field of practice. My body of work has been in plankton research to support fisheries assessments, and in ecosystems programme development and implementation. I describe my early studies on Pacific plankton oceanography in relation to fisheries assessment, and subsequent studies of plankton oceanography and fisheries in relation to coastal ocean fisheries and management. Early in my career, realizing that applications of my published results and those of other fisheries ecologists were generally not included in fish stock assessments, I participated in a national planning group that introduced a system for marine resources monitoring, assessment, and prediction (MARMAP) that included primary productivity, ichthyoplankton, zooplankton, and oceanographic assessments as important components for large-scale fisheries ecology assessment. I joined with European colleagues in ICES to advance fisheries ecology studies in fish stock assessments in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1983, I conceived with Professor Lewis Alexander of the University of Rhode Island a system for assessing and managing marine resources within the spatial domain of ecologically delineated large marine ecosystems (LMEs). On behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and in partnership with developing countries, international financial organizations, UN agencies, and NGOs, I am currently contributing scientific and technical advice to a global network of assessment and management projects in 22 LMEs with 110 developing countries and $3.1 billion in financial support. The participating countries are applying a modular framework of natural science and social science indicators for assessing the changing states of LMEs. I conclude the essay with a retrospective viewpoint on my career and changes over half a century of practicing the application of marine science in relation to sustaining the goods and services of the ocean Commons.

Abstract. The western tropical South Pacific (WTSP) is one of the most understudied oceanic regions in terms of the planktonic food web, despite supporting some of the largest tuna fisheries in the world. In this stratified oligotrophic ocean, nitrogen fixation may play an important role in supporting the plankton food web and higher trophic level production. In the austral summer (February–April) of 2015, the OUTPACE (Oligotrophy to UlTra-oligotrophy PACific Experiment) project conducted a comprehensive survey of 4000 km along 20∘ S, from New Caledonia to Tahiti, to determine the role of N2 fixation on biogeochemical cycles and food web structure in this region. Here, we characterize the zooplankton community and plankton food web processes at 15 short-duration stations (8 h each) to describe the large-scale variability across trophic gradients from oligotrophic waters around Melanesian archipelagoes (MAs) to ultra-oligotrophic waters of the South Pacific gyre (GY). Three long-duration stations (5 days each) enabled a more detailed analysis of processes and were positioned (1) in offshore northern waters of New Caledonia (MA), (2) near Niue Island (MA), and (3) in the subtropical Pacific gyre (GY) near the Cook Islands. At all stations, meso-zooplankton was sampled with a bongo net with 120 µm mesh size to estimate abundance, biomass, community taxonomy and size structure, and size fractionated δ15N. Subsequently, we estimated zooplankton carbon demand, grazing impact, excretion rates, and the contribution of diazotroph-derived nitrogen (DDN) to zooplankton biomass. The meso-zooplankton community showed a general decreasing trend in abundance and biomass from west to east, with a clear drop in the GY waters. Higher abundance and biomass corresponded to higher primary production associated with complex mesoscale circulation in the Coral Sea and between 170–180∘ W. The taxonomic structure showed a high degree of similarity in terms of species richness and abundance distribution across the whole region, with, however, a moderate difference in the GY region, where the copepod contribution to meso-zooplankton increased. The calculated ingestion and metabolic rates allowed us to estimate that the top–down (grazing) and bottom–up (excretion of nitrogen and phosphorous) impact of zooplankton on phytoplankton was potentially high. Daily grazing pressure on phytoplankton stocks was estimated to remove 19 % to 184 % of the total daily primary production and 1.5 % to 22 % of fixed N2. The top–down impact of meso-zooplankton was higher in the eastern part of the transect, including GY, than in the Coral Sea region and was mainly exerted on nano- and micro-phytoplankton. The regeneration of nutrients by zooplankton excretion was high, suggesting a strong contribution to regenerated production, particularly in terms of N. Daily NH4+ excretion accounted for 14.5 % to 165 % of phytoplankton needs for N, whereas PO43- excretion accounted for only 2.8 % to 34 % of P needs. From zooplankton δ15N values, we estimated that the DDN contributed to up to 67 % and 75 % to the zooplankton biomass in the western and central parts of the MA regions, respectively, but strongly decreased to an average of 22 % in the GY region and down to 7 % in the easternmost station. Thus, the highest contribution of diazotrophic microorganisms to zooplankton biomass occurred in the region of highest N2 fixation rates and when Trichodesmium dominated the diazotrophs community (MA waters). Our estimations of the fluxes associated with zooplankton were highly variable between stations and zones but very high in most cases compared to literature data, partially due to the high contribution of small forms. The highest values encountered were found at the boundary between the oligotrophic (MA) and ultra-oligotrophic regions (GY). Within the MA zone, the high variability of the top–down and bottom–up impact was related to the high mesoscale activity in the physical environment. Estimated zooplankton respiration rates relative to primary production were among the highest cited values at similar latitudes, inducing a high contribution of migrant zooplankton respiration to carbon flux. Despite the relatively low biomass values of planktonic components in quasi-steady state, the availability of micro- and macronutrients related to physical mesoscale patterns in the waters surrounding the MA, the fueling by DDN, and the relatively high rates of plankton production and metabolism estimated during OUTPACE may explain the productive food chain ending with valuable fisheries in this region.

The time-tested Indigenous fishing knowledge (IFK) of Fiji and the Pacific Islands is seriously threatened due to the commercialization of fishing, breakdown of traditional communal leadership and oral knowledge transmission systems, modern education, and the movement of the younger generations to urban areas for work and/or study. Consequently, IFK, which has been orally transmitted for generations, has either been lost, not learned by the current generation, or remains undocumented. This study focuses on the critical need to conserve and include IFK as a basis for assessing the conservation status of ecologically and culturally keystone fisheries species as a basis for planning site-specific management of marine and freshwater fisheries in Fiji and the Pacific Islands. The study reviews studies of the last two and a half centuries on IFK from Fiji and elsewhere in the small oceanic islands of the Pacific, as a basis for the conservation, documentation and intergenerational transfer of this knowledge as the foundation for sustainable fisheries management. The study also reviews: the nature and conservation status of IFK, itself; and the conservation status of species considered to be of particular ecological and cultural importance; reasons for the loss of species/taxa and associated knowledge and practices; and actions that can be taken to address this loss.