Wednesday February 23, 2011
As part of our continuing conservation efforts in the Mekong, our FISHBIO Conservation Director, Harmony Patricio, works with local field technicians to measure the true value of fish. They conduct creel surveys of fishing catches in their villages and market surveys of fish sales, meet local fishers in the morning and record data on species captured like standard length and weight, the type and size of gear used, fishing habits, and fishing effort. They also collect data on consumption of fish and income from selling fish or other sources.
“We are trying to capture a very comprehensive value for fish in this system, not just collect baseline biological and harvest data. We hope to use hard numbers to demonstrate the relatively high contribution of fish to nutrition and livelihoods in the Lower Mekong Basin.”
– Harmony Patricio
The field crew collects data on what species are sold, where they are sourced, the prices, relative demand, and actual sales each day. They also conduct household surveys in the evenings to identify and measure all the food the families will eat for dinner, and to quantify the contribution of fish to nutrition.
Photo source: FISHBIO