Abstract
The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 into the Turkish Cypriot north and the Greek Cypriot south. Here, we have reconstructed the total marine fishery removals for the island in its entirety, and then for each side. Cyprus’s total marine fisheries catches were reconstructed for the 1950–2010 time period by estimating all fishery removals, including unreported commercial, subsistence and recreational catches, and major discards. These estimates were added to the ‘officially reported’ data, as represented by data submitted by countries to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Such data were submitted by the south, but were absent from the north for years following the 1974 partitioning of the island. The total reconstructed catch for 1950–2010 was nearly 243,000 t, which is 2.6 times the 93,200 t officially reported by FAO on behalf of Cyprus. The unreported components consisted of nearly 57,000 t of large-scale commercial landings, 43,000 t of small-scale commercial landings, 11,000 t each for recreational and subsistence landings and nearly 28,000 t of discards. Improving the accuracy of fishery statistics by accounting for all removals is fundamental for better understanding fisheries resource use thus increasing the opportunities for sustainable development through enhancing fisheries management capacity.
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Notes
These data are from records held in the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, and E. Sinay, who has long worked for the ministry personally contacted the former operator of the purse seiner on our behalf to verify the catch composition.
The Behavioural Research Ethics Board (BREB) from the University of British Columbia provided guidance of the survey structure (H13-00012).
To approximate this, in 2013, B.A. Çiçek visited over 8 recreational fishing shelters to approximate what percentage of registered vessels actively fish recreationally.
As of late 2013 in the south, there were only two active bottom trawlers and no active purse seiners in operation.
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Acknowledgments
We thank everyone in both halves of the island who contributed valuable knowledge and insight to this study. Particular thanks go to Ercan Sinay (Department of Animal Husbandry, TNRC), and Netice Yildiz for her assistance with the history of the island. We thank the Sea Around Us, a scientific collaboration between the University of British Columbia and The Pew Charitable Trusts, for funding A.U., D.P. and D.Z.
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Ulman, A., Çiçek, B.A., Salihoglu, I. et al. Unifying the catch data of a divided island: Cyprus’s marine fisheries catches, 1950–2010. Environ Dev Sustain 17, 801–821 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-014-9576-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-014-9576-z