Cyanide fishing on Indonesian coral reefs for the live food fish market – What is the problem?

According to three precautionary estimations, the reef-degrading capacity of the cyanide fishery for food fish on Indonesia’s coral reefs amounts to a loss of live coral cover of 0.047, 0.052 and 0.060 m2 per 100 m2 of reef per year. These estimates for the rate of coral cover loss are low compared to published rates of natural coral recovery. Differences in growth rate between species of hard coral will cause coral reefs to take longer to recover from the effects of cyanide fishing than a direct comparison of the rate of coral cover loss with published rates of natural coral recovery would suggest. Still, the cyanide fishery for food fish may not be as threatening to Indonesia’s coral reefs as is sometimes assumed, especially not as compared to other threats such as blast fishing (responsible for a loss of live coral cover amounting to 3.75 m2 per 100 m2 of reef per year, (Pet-Soede, Cesar & Pet, 1999)), or coral bleaching caused by global climate change (cf. Hoegh–Guldberg, 1999). Setting the input variables for the estimates at extreme values did not change these conclusions substantively. The depletion of grouper stocks by the trade in live reef food fish, however, is worrying from both fisheries and conservation perspectives. Strategies to abate the depletion of these grouper stocks should not only consider cyanide fishing, but also other fishing methods. Epinephelus lanceolatus) are currently listed as ‘vulnerable’ on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List (Baillie & Groombridge, 1996). Besides the problem of overexploitation of target species, there is a concern that one of the most widely used capture methods, the application of cyanide solution to stun the fish, is causing severe reef degradation (Johannes & Riepen, 1995). The perceived problem of reef degradation, together with the intriguing nature of the trade has attracted public attention, put pressure on policy makers to abate cyanide fishing, and created a greater willingness among environmental organisations to get involved in the LRFFT issue (Johannes & Riepen, 1995; Pratt, 1995; Barber & Pratt, 1997a; 1997b). However, there is still considerable uncertainty about the extent of the coral reef degradation by cyanide fishing for live food fish. Laboratory experiments showed that exposure of zooxanthellate hard coral to a range of cyanide doses likely to occur during cyanide fishing results in coral bleaching or death of the polyps (Jones & Steven, Cyanide fishing on Indonesian coral reefs for the live food fish market – What is the problem? Peter J. Mous1, Lida Pet-Soede2, Mark Erdmann3, Herman S.J. Cesar4,Yvonne Sadovy5 & Jos S. Pet6 1. The Nature Conservancy Coastal & Marine Program, Indonesia. Email: [email protected] 2. Fisheries Management Consultant. E-mail: [email protected] 3. University of California, Berkeley & Indonesian Institute of Sciences. E-mail: [email protected] 4. Institute of Environmental Studies, Free University Amsterdam & Environmental Economics Consulting (CEEC). E-mail: [email protected] 5. The Department of Ecology and Biodiversity, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected] 6. The Nature Conservancy Coastal & Marine Program, Indonesia. E-mail: [email protected]