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Maldives is a tuna fishing nation with a history dating back hundreds of years. Tuna fishery was the mainstay of the Maldivian economy, providing employment and income, until the establishment of the tourism industry.
The Maldives enacted a new fisheries act in 2019 which superseded the Fisheries Act of 1987. The new Act strengthened fisheries management and governance within the Maldivian waters and Maldives flagged vessels as well as personnel on board these vessels. The Act requires all commercial fisheries, including tuna and non-tuna fisheries, to be managed through respective management plans which have been gazetted.
The tuna fishing fleet has undergone several changes following mechanization that began in 1974. The current fleet is a mixed of wooden and fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) vessels. Majority of the tuna fishing vessels range from 12.5 - 32.5 m in length. Trip lengths for pole and line trip may last between a single day and a week while handline trips are generally 10-15 days long and may depend on the catch and bait availability. The longline fleet that operated in the outer waters of the Maldives EEZ, beyond 100 miles and the high seas, that was suspended in June of 2019 remained as such and therefore did not operate in 2020.
Maldives tuna catches peaked in 2006, reaching about 167,000 t, after which the catches declined by 53% by 2010. Tuna catches have been recovering since with 2020 recording about 146,800 t. In terms of species, skipjack and yellowfin are the two main species in the Maldives tuna fisheries with 70% and 26% contribution respectively.
Skipjack tuna catch from all gears increased by 49% in the last five years (from 69,587t to 103,870t). In contrast, yellowfin tuna catch continues to decline and observed a 19% drop within the last five years (53,264 t to 42,703 t). With the absence of the longline fishery and a decline in reported catches from the pole-and-line fishery, bigeye tuna observed a reduction in catch from 396 t in 2019 to 87 t in 2020. Over the past 5 years, this decline is at 96%. Neritic tunas, frigate and kawakawa remain minor components, contributing about 1% of all tunas.
Pole and line gear landed nearly all of skipjack tuna in 2020 (103,195 t), representing 99% of skipjack tuna landed. Yellowfin tuna contribution from the pole and line gear was at 36% (15,651 t) with the remaining 63% (27,053 t) from the handline fishery. The trolling fleet catch was a negligible amount of 5.6 t of tuna. The longline fishery did not operate in 2020 reporting zero catch.
The two primary gears of the Maldivian tuna fisheries, pole-and-line and handline are highly selective with virtually no bycatch and discards. Observation of over 161 pole-and-line trips by Miller et al, (2017) reported an amount of 0.65% of total tuna catch by weight. Being surface gears, the pole and line and handline gears do not interact or record bycatch of blue sharks, thresher sharks and marine turtles.
Almost all of the important bycatch and other species that interact with commercial tuna fisheries are protected in the Maldives. These include sharks, whalesharks, marine turtles, marine mammals and seabirds inter alia.
Logbooks for the pole and line and handline tuna fisheries were introduced in 2010 and revised in 2012. To improve logbook reporting, modifications to the regulatory framework as well as the fishery licensing conditions were brought about in 2019, which required the submission of the log sheet for the trip prior to unloading the catch. As a results, the logbook coverage has increased substantially.
The web-enabled fishery information system, “Keyolhu” serve as the central system to house and report the fishery catch and effort data. The system also facilitates issuing of fishing and fish processing licenses, entry of fish purchase data by the exporters. A mobile-phone based catch reporting application has also been developed for the tuna fisheries which would allow electronic reporting. Full roll-out of the electronic reporting was hampered due to the COVID crisis.
The vessel monitoring system continues to be improved by replacing the old units with newer models with additional features. Installation of VMS systems onboard the required 373 vessels is expected to be complete within the first quarter of 2022.
A program to implement electronic monitoring of fishing activities is ongoing with the system being installed on 14 vessels. The activities of the program has been delayed due to delays in training staff and customization of the software.
National fishery monitoring programs and research activities for the species of importance in the tuna fisheries are implemented. However, as most species, e.g. mobulids, thresher sharks, blue shark, whale sharks and marine turtles, have zero interactions and bycatch, systemic sampling and monitoring programs for such species do not exist. Further, various national legislations protect these species within the Maldivian waters.
Maldives strived to implement the various requirements from IOTC Conservation and Management Measures, including those that came into effect in 2020. Utmost importance of these are the mandatory statistical data recording and reporting. Several measures have been taken to improve the quality and quantity of catch and effort data from the tuna fisheries. Most of the measures relating to sharks, marine turtles, marine mammals and seabirds are not applicable to the Maldives due to the absence in the tuna fisheries and virtually non-existent interactions (noting the longline fishery did not operate in 2020).
