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Yemen

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The Red Sea Ecosystem and Fisheries

Part of the book series: Coral Reefs of the World ((CORW,volume 7))

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Abstract

Following a brief description of the Yemen’s Red Sea coast and its coral reefs, the marine fisheries catches in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Yemen in the Red Sea are presented from 1950 to 2010. Reported catches were separated into different sectors, mainly artisanal, subsistence and industrial, and further into taxonomic composition. In the Red Sea waters of Yemen, the only active fisheries were the artisanal and subsistence until 1970; then, the industrial fishery started. The total catch remained low (around 10,000 t · year−1 in the 1950s) until the formation of fishery cooperatives and the availability of loans from the Agricultural Credit Bank in the mid-1970s, which allowed for the motorization of many vessels. The peak catch of about 90,000 t · year−1 was achieved at the end of the 1990s and then it declined to about 44,000 t · year−1 by the end of the 2000s. The industrial fishery picked up only in the mid-1990s, but its catches began to decline around 2003. The reconstructed catches were 1.9 times the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) catch data for the Red Sea part of Yemen.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the personnel of the Marine Research and Resource Center in Hodeidah , especially to Fahad Shooi Zabaan for his help with interviews and data acquisition, and Aref for helping in the arrangement of this work and for hospitality. We also thank the personnel of the Ministry of Fish Wealth, especially Khalid Hezaam Al Makrami. Margaret North’s inputs after reading the first draft are appreciated. This research was supported by Sea Around Us , a scientific collaboration between the University of British Columbia and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Dawit Tesfamichael & Peter Rossing

  2. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Asmara, Asmara, Eritrea

    Dawit Tesfamichael

  3. Marine Research and Resource Center, Hodeidah, Yemen

    Hesham Saeed

Authors
  1. Dawit Tesfamichael
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  2. Peter Rossing
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  3. Hesham Saeed
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Correspondence to Dawit Tesfamichael .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada

    Dawit Tesfamichael

  2. Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Daniel Pauly

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Tesfamichael, D., Rossing, P., Saeed, H. (2016). Yemen. In: Tesfamichael, D., Pauly, D. (eds) The Red Sea Ecosystem and Fisheries. Coral Reefs of the World, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7435-2_5

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