Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Recording coral reef fish sizes at a Fiji market (image: Sangeeta Mangubhai). Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA) and the U.S. If the economic benefits of carefully managing marine life are so obvious, what are we waiting for? If you look at it from the other side, slack enforcement of size regulations – often a consequence of a lack of political will or weak governance – may induce huge economic losses. They estimate that ‘if minimum legal size limits were enforced, the entire long-term harvest of some species could increase by up to 97% and generate up to 144% more revenue.’ According to Lee and his colleagues ( see their article here), who have studied the potential impact of a strict enforcement of sea cucumber size limits in four Melanesian countries, the benefits – particularly increased economic returns – should be spectacular. It may, however, be different in sea cucumber fisheries. The benefits of these restrictions, which should be increased stocks and better fishing, sometimes take a long time to come to fruition and are not always spectacular. This building set comes with 3 LEGO minifigures General Grievous, Obi-Wan Kenobi and an Airborne Clone Trooper with weapons for youngsters to role-play. Imposing size limits also means imposing restrictions on fishers, which is a move that is rarely popular. They hope that their results will be broadly applicable across the Pacific Islands region with minor adjustments. They have also studied the pros and cons of placing these minimum size limits into categories that are rounded to the nearest 5 cm to facilitate monitoring and enforcement. In Fiji, scientists have partnered with communities to study and estimate the size of maturity of 46 of the main reef fish species consumed or sold there ( see article by Prince et al. But for this to happen, the size of maturity of the species must be known, which is not the case for many tropical reef fish.
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Imposing species-specific size limits is one of the management measures used to ensure that animals will have a chance to reach adult size and reproduce successfully before being caught. They are the main topic of two very interesting articles in this issue, among many others.
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Size limits seem to have regained popularity in the reef fisheries world. Produced with financial assistance from the Australian Government, the European Union, France and the New Zealand Aid Programme Produced by the Pacific Community, Division of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems, Information Section, BP D5, 98848 Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia Effective Coastal Fisheries Management Project.Coastal Fisheries Science, Management & Livelihoods.