Pole-and-Line Skipjack Tuna Fishery
For centuries, Maldivians have used pole-and-lines to harvest surface swimming tunas. This traditional form of fishing is relatively clean with minimal impact on the ecosystem, in comparison to other gears used for harvesting skipjack tuna elsewhere. Pole-and-line has remained as the primary gear for tuna fishing throughout the history of the country. Traditionally, pole-and-line fishing was conducted off wooden hulled, sailing vessels or masdhoni, built out of coconut lumber. The fleet became increasingly heterogenous and advanced with the developments in the industry during the 70’s and 80’s, most notable of which was the mechanization of the fleet that began in 1974. By 1978, over 70% of the tuna catch was being landed by mechanized pole-and-line vessels, which grew to 99% by 1984. Other drivers for the change include installation of Anchored Fish Aggregating Devices (AFADs) that began in 1981, opening up of canneries, diversification of export markets and other socio-economic factors.
Pole-and-line remains the most important gear for tunas in the country. Of the four tuna gears, average contribution from pole-and-line fishery to the national tuna catch was around 73% for the recent five years (2015-2019).
Skipjack and yellowfin tuna comprise 99% of the pole-and-line catch (83% and 15% respectively), while bigeye tuna, frigate tuna and kawakawa contributed the remaining 1%. The pole-and-line catch is mostly landed at landing ports of processing facilities where it is processed or exported for processing. Additionally, a proportion of the catch is also sold to small-scale processing facilities that specialise in loca products such as dried and smoked tuna.
Handline Tuna Fishery
The handline yellowfin tuna fishery targets surface swimming large yellowfin tuna above 70 cm fork length (Adam and Jauhary 2009; Adam et al. 2015; Ahusan et al. 2016) with over 80% of catch in the 102-160 cm fork length range (Ahusan et al., 2016). The commercial fishery is relatively recent and began during the period of late 1990’s and early 2000’s when private parties began investing in fresh tuna export businesses as a result of privatization of the fisheries sector (Adam, 2007). Prior to the establishment and commercialization of the handline yellowfin tuna fishery, traditional fisheries for large yellowfin tuna using handlines, trolling and to a lesser extent, pole-and-line existed. The fisheries were seasonal and located in the regions of Haa Alifu Atoll during January to April; Male’ Atoll during March-September; and Fuvah Mulaku and Addu Atoll during April and November (MRS, 1996).
With the opportunities for export to the Japanese sashimi and European markets, the fishery observed rapid growth, mostly in the northern and central parts of the country where it has possibly surpassed pole-and-line fishery in terms of number of vessels and fishers. Other key drivers for the expansion include the lucrativeness of the fishery and the ease of switching from pole-and-line to handline fishery as it required minimal investments and modification to the vessel. As the catch was exported fresh or frozen, landing and processing facilities for large yellowfin tuna are situated in the vicinity of Hulhulé, the main international airport.
Contribution from the handline fishery to the total tuna catch was around 26% in the most recent five-year period (2015-2019). Handline is a highly targeted fishery and yellowfin tuna comprised over 96% of the catch volume in the same period.
Longline Fishery
Longline is not a traditional tuna gear in the Maldives and was not employed by Maldivian fishers to harvest tunas. A licensed longline fleet which targeted bigeye and yellowfin tuna operated beyond 75 nm, within Maldives EEZ since 1985 (Anderson, Hafiz and Adam, 1996). Waters within 75 miles was reserved for the local tuna fishery. In August of 1994, all existing longline licenses were terminated by the Ministry of Trade and Industries; the authority issuing longline licenses at the time, partly due to non-compliance with the data submission requirement of the license (Anderson et. Al, 1996).
Longline licensing appears to have resumed around 1997, as indicated by the catch and effort data at the Ministry. As was the case previously, the licenses were issued by the Ministry of Trade and Industries. A royalty of 1USD per kg of tuna was also levied (Anderson, Adam and Rasheed, 2003). The fishery continued until May 2010 when licensing was ceased to develop a fully local longline fleet. The Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture resumed licensing in 2011 to localised vessels and operators to fish from 75 miles and beyond, within the Maldives EEZ. With the Longline Fishery Regulation of 2014 (No. 2014/R-388), the fishery became highly regulated, consistent with relevant conservation and management measures of IOTC. The regulation allowed longliners to fish for bigeye and yellowfin tuna from 100 miles from the archipelagic baseline,
including in the high seas, with VMS, vessel marking and logbook reporting mandated. The Government of Maldives stopped licensing longliners for a third time in 2019 due to non-compliance of vessels and irregularities in the data reporting.
564 tonnes of tuna were caught from longline in 2019. Of this total catch, 84% comprise of yellowfin tuna. In addition to tropical tunas, billfishes were also caught in the longline fishery as by-catch.
Trolling
Historically, the troll fishery was a significant component of the Maldives tuna fishery. The fleet targeted frigate and kawakawa inside and outside the atolls and was more common in the northern atolls where the target species were more abundant compared to the south of the Maldives (Anderson, Waheed and Adam, 1998). The fishery was most prominent during the period of mechanization of the pole-and-line fleet from late 1970s to early 1980s (Adam, Anderson and Hafiz, 2003). The size of the fleet peaked in 1982 with almost 3,482 vessels and had declined to 713 by 2010. Tuna catches from the troll fishing was less than 0.12% of all four tuna gears in the recent five-year period (2015-2019) amounting to approximately 790 tonnes. Socio-economic factors are believed to have contributed to the decline of the traditional troll fishery (Adam, Anderson and Hafiz, 2003).