MARINE FISHING IN THAILAND

            The marine fishing in Thailand has mainly been operated in the Thai territorial waters of the Gulf of Thailand and Andaman Sea.  In recent years, however, larger Thai trawlers and purse-seines have extended their fishing grounds to off shore of neighboring countries under the joint-venture projects.

            Thailand has a coastline of 1,784 km facing the Gulf of Thailand.  The waters along this coast are on the whole shallow to a good distance from the shore.  The waters are rich in nutrient salts brought in by many rivers.  The bottom in shallow waters is either muddy or sandy, suitable for fishing by gill net, push net, and similar gear operated by small boats.  Above all, those waters had proved to be ideal for trawling.

            The Thai waters in the Andaman Sea are very different from the Gulf of Thailand.  The coastline is only 740 km long and the rather narrow continental shelf descends into a steep continental slope.  The sea bottom is quite rough, with scattered coral and rocks.  Those relatively unfavorable conditions are reflected in the fishery production which is only about one-fifth of that from the Gulf.

         In the past until the Second World War, the marine fishing in Thailand was carried out mainly in shallow coastal waters, with traditional gears such as bamboo stake trap, set bag net, castnet and hooks.  The situation change drastically in the early 1960s.  The government started to promote fisheries development, particularly deep-sea fishing, in order to increase marine production destined for the fast growing domestic market and for export.  Among the newly introduced gears, the most far-reaching effect was created by otter-board trawl.  The annual marine production, which had been only 150,000 tons  in the 1950s, increased sharply to 1,000,000 mts. in 1968 and reached to 2,827447 mts in 1994.  Then fisheries its was declined a little bit to 2,679,500 mts. in 1997.

            In 1997, the marine fisheries production in terms of quantity was 79 per cent of the total fishery production in Thailand.  The quantity and value of marine fishery production for each year from 1990 to 1997 is show in the table below.

          The production has been declined in 1979 and 1980 was due to the neighboring countries declared their 200-miles exclusive economic zones (EEZ).  However, the production recovered again in 1981 and growing up until 1994, mainly due to successfully implemented join-venture projects.  Then it was stop growing up after 1994 and started fluctuated.  The table below shows the volume of marine fishery production in 1997, by typed of fishing gear.

 Source : Fishery Statistical Bulletin, 1997 (SEAFDEC 2001)

            In 1997 catches of the most popular commercial fishing gears trawlers and purse-seines contributed more than 90 per cent of total marine production (58.7 per cent from trawlers, 30 per cent from purse-seines).

            Marine Fisheries Development from 1982 to 1997 was developed so fast, especially the most popular commercial fishing gears like trawl, surrounding etc.  Their catches were shown at the highest per cent for trawlers and 30 per cent for surrounding net, others was about 10 per cent.  However, in spite of the rising figures for total trawl catches in the Gulf of Thailand, the catch per unite effort (CPUE) has actually been declining since 1963, indicating over-fishing in recent years According to a report of surveys conducted by the research vessels of the department of Fishes, the CPUE in 1963 was 232 kilogram per hours, then reduced to 53 kilogram per hour in 1982 and down to 16.2 kilogram per hour in 1997.

            Another serious problem of trawl fishing is that two-third of the total catch is consists of low priced trash-fish, which is not used for direct human consumption, but is processed into fishmeal, or used for feeding in fish farm.  It is know, however that this also includes a significant enough proportion of juvenile high-value fish, which is thus destroyed prematurely.  A decrease in demersal resources, which began to be felt in the mid-1970s, caused a renewed interest in pelagic fish and purse seine fishing.  In 1972, purse seine catches amounted only 65,282 tons, but by 1976 the amount in creased to 293,402 tons, then 332,835 tons in 1982 and became 802,623 tons in 1997.  These are cause from light fishing too.

            The catch by gill net in 1997 was only 3.9 per cent of total marine catch, it was reduced from 5.5 per cent in 1982 become 3.9 per cent in 1997.  The production value, however, was considerably higher than this percentage would suggest, because the gill net catches included shrimp, pomfret, crab, and other high-priced species.  There fore, gill net is important, even though it is considered to be mainly a small-scale gear.  Its could observed that catches by commercial fishing gear.  (Trawler & Purse-Seine) was increate while the catches from small-scale fishing gear was decreased this may cause by band of Drift gill net for bonito and Spanish mackerel.  Also, Total Marine production by commercial fishing gear were increased due to the promotion of joint-venture to the neighboring countries.

            The total numbers of registered fishing boats in Thailand in 1995 was 54,538,  2,826 were non-powered boats, 36,430 were powered boats with outboard engine and 15,282 were inboard-powered boats.  The inboard-powered boats in Thailand are usually classified by length as follows:
 

 Source :  Thai Fishing Vessels Statistics 1997, Department of Fisheries 1999

            The table below shows the number of fishing units in 1982 and 1997 by type of fishing, it must be noted that in Thailand the number of fishing units means, in fact, the number or inboard powered boats.

Source : Thai Fishing Vessel Statistics 1997, DOF 1999, SEAFDEC, 1982

            During the past fifteen year from 1982 to 1997 many trawler had changed to be others type of fishing such as squid fishing by luring light, squid trap, anchovy fishing etc.  However, trawler is still the major group of Thai fishing boats at present.  Push net fishing was reduced due to the government policy to ban push net in the near future.  While purse seine was increased because anchovy fishing become a popular at the moment.  And trap fishing has no record because it was considered as a kind of small scale fishing gear, so it need not to get the license for fishing.

            Gill net fishing on the other hand contributed 3.9 per cent to the total amount of catch, while being represented by as much as 27 per cent in the number of fishing units.  But a relatively low amount of catch was compensated by its high value.  A great number gill net boats are usually engaged in shrimp fishing, and a substantial proportion of their catch is exported.  There are also many non-powered or outboard-powered boats, which are also engaged in hook and line fishing has always been very small.  However, this kind of fishing is carried out by many non-powered and outboard powered boats.

            Thailand has become one of the largest fishery producers in the world.  At the sometime, Thailand has encountered problems such as over-fishing, decline of fish stock, and a low standard of living of small-scale fishermen.  In order to keep pace with the overall economic development of the country and to maintain fishery production as a significant part of the national food supply, the marine fishery resources have to be utilized nationally and effectively under a coherent fishery management policy. Controlling fishing gear and methods, for example, regulating the mesh size and the amount of fishing effort, will play a significant role in attaining the purpose of fisheries management.