FADs attract tuna and other pelagic fish making it easier to catch them.
Sokimi, Secretariat of the Pacific Community
Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs)
Community members are trained in construction, deployment and maintenance of FADs.
F. Brunken, GIZ
FADs attract pelagic fish to a certain offshore area and therefore facilitate offshore fisheries, and at the same time alleviate fishing pressure on inshore areas like coral reefs and provide alternative livelihoods for the local community. Its implementation includes the following activities: • Community training on FADs construction, management, deployment, maintenance and fishing methods; • Ongoing FADs monitoring and data collection to evaluate social and economic benefits of FADs; • Stockpiling materials for repair, maintenance and new deployments of FADs.
- The Community Coastal Fisheries Management Plan has to be agreed by the respective community and by all relevant stakeholders before any discussion on FADs can take place.
- FADs are only one of many options of management actions and should be communicated to the community as exactly that.
- The deployment of FADs always has to be combined with a monitoring and evaluation program to be able to adjust and follow up the project implementation process.
It is often difficult to sufficiently link the FADs deployment and evaluation with ongoing monitoring programs e.g. from conservation NGOs on impacts to existing MPAs. But this is crucial to actually assess the impacts and expected changes in the use and management of coastal resources.