Building Resilience in Vanuatu’s Small-Scale Fisheries Sector through Improved Vessel Designs - TCP/VAN/3901

Building Resilience in Vanuatu’s Small-Scale Fisheries Sector through Improved Vessel Designs - TCP/VAN/3901

Editor

FAO ;

Descripción

Vanuatu is a Y-shaped archipelago of approximately 80 islands, 67 of which are inhabited and 12 of which are considered major. The islands, together with their associated reefs, lie between latitudes 13 and 21°S and longitudes 166 and 172°E in the western Pacific Ocean. The archipelago measures around 850 km in length1 and lies in the middle of a triangle formed by Fiji, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia. Vanuatu’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers an estimated area of 680 000 square kilometres, with a total coastline of around 2 528 kilometres in length (Vanuatu Fisheries Department 2007 Annual Report). At the time of writing, Vanuatu’s population is estimated to be around 335 000, with most of the population being rural, although the capital Port Vila and Santo have populations in the tens of thousands. Most of the inhabitants of Vanuatu (98.5 percent) are native Melanesian, or Ni-Vanuatu, with the remainder comprising a mix of Europeans, Asians and other Pacific islanders (Website of the Government of Vanuatu. tinyurl.com/3kbj46pf). The deep-bottom fishery was established as a result of government initiatives following a series of fishing surveys of deep reef slope resources in the 1970s, which indicated the presence of commercially significant stocks of deep-water snappers and groupers. In 1982, the Village Fisheries Development Project (VFDP) was established to encourage rural fishers to enter this fishery. Under the project, rural fishing groups were provided with subsidized fishing craft built at the boatyard in Santo – also established in 1982 – as well as equipment and fuel, soft loans, training and technical and marketing assistance.