National adoption of small-scale fisheries data system in Timor-Leste

Published on: April 28, 2020, Submitted by Alexander Tilley on: March 3, 2020, Reporting year: 2019

Sustainable Development Goals Contribution

The PeskAAS digital fisheries monitoring system developed with and for the government of Timor-Leste to more effectively gather data on catch and distribution of fishing effort, has been officially launched and adopted by the Government as of May 2019. The partnership with Pelagic Data Systems enabled the rapid scaling of the system to 500 vessel tracking devices involving 5000 fishers. The data will contribute to guide the sustainable exploitation of these resources influencing the livelihoods of smalls-scale coastal fishers.

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Approximately half of the global catch of fish is landed in small-scale fisheries (SSF), yet the ability of science to guide the sustainable exploitation of these resources is inhibited by a massive data gap. There are 40 million people actively fishing in inland and coastal systems worldwide, yet due to the challenges involved in collecting data in such dispersed, informal and diverse contexts of SSF, the contributions of this fish food system to livelihoods and food security are hidden and undersold (Mills et al., 2011). As a result, fish has been largely absent in the development of food-based approaches for greater food security and nutrition (FAO, 2018). However, recent research shows that nutrient quality of fish is determined by species composition not quantity (Hicks et al., 2019), so for many countries whose populations suffer from inadequate nutrient intake, fish-based food strategies could be an effective strategy.

The "Integrated data pipeline for small-scale fisheries" was developed by WorldFish in Timor-Leste in response to a need for information. As is the case in a great many countries of the world, but especially in Asia where more than 80% of the small-scale fishing fleet is active, the government of Timor-Leste had only patchy understanding of how many boats were active in the country, where they were fishing and what they were catching. This was partly due to a lack of funding resources, but also due to an historical prioritization of farming practices over fishing. However, fish was highlighted in the National Strategic Development Plan (2012-2030) as a critical resource in combating severe malnutrition in the country. Hence, decisions lacked any scientific or data-driven reasoning, and managers were in the dark about the fishery.

WorldFish scientists worked alongside government fisheries officers to develop a digital catch reporting system that could gather fisheries landings information from remote sites around the country in near real time. Through an innovated partnership with US private sector firm Pelagic Data Systems, WorldFish also began to gather high resolution spatial information about the fishery and fishing behaviour, which could be combined with catch data to provide much more accurate measures of relative fish abundance in space and time. The initial extrapolated data from this system allowed for the first calculation of national fisheries production including small-scale fisheries. The Fisheries directorate hired 11 new dedicated fisheries landings enumerators, one for each municipality of the country, and in May 2019, the Government announced the launch of PeskAAS as the official national monitoring system of Timor-Leste. The transparent co-creation of the system with the fisheries directorate was important in building local ownership of the system, and greatly enhances the potential sustainability.

Stage of Maturity and Sphere of influence

Stage of Maturity: Stage 2
Contributions in sphere of influence:
3.1.2 - Enhanced conservation of habitats and resources.
3.2.1 - More productive and equitable management of natural resources

Acknowledgement

This work was undertaken as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) led by WorldFish. This study was carried out under the Fisheries Sector Support Program funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta, and an Inspire Challenge 2018 Award from the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture (AT). Catch collection elements were designed in close collaboration with fisheries officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Timor-Leste, in particular Pedro Rodrigues, Celestino da Cunha Barreto and Lucas Fernandes. The partnership with Pelagic Data Systems enabled the rapid scaling of the system to 500 vessel tracking devices, which relied on the hard work and resilience of the field team and data collectors led by Joctan Dos Reis Lopes. The data pipeline was coded by Shaun Wilkinson of Wilderlab.