Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 24

PART 1 WORLD REVIEW
inland waters, which represent respectively 87.2
and 12.8 percent of the global total, are discussed
separately in the following sections.
representing a decrease of almost 2 million
tonnes. Catches of anchoveta (Engraulis ringens)
by Peru and Chile, which are often substantial
yet highly variable because of the inf luence of El
Niño, accounted for 1.1 million tonnes of this
decrease, with other major countries and species,
particularly cephalopods, also showing reduced
catches between 2015 and 2016 (Tables 2 and 3).
Decreasing catches affected 64 percent of the 25
top producer countries, but only 37 percent of the
remaining 170 countries.
National reports are the main, although not the
only, source of data used to maintain and update
FAO’s capture fisher y databases. Hence, the
qualit y of these statistics depends in large
measure on the accuracy and reliabilit y of the
data collected nationally and provided to FAO.
Improvements in the overall qualit y of FAO’s
global databases can only be obtained by
enhancing the national data collection systems,
to produce better information that can support
policy and management decisions at national and
regional levels (FAO, 2002; and see “FAO’s
approach to improving the qualit y and utilit y of
capture fisher y data” in Part 2). Unfortunately,
the annual proportion of non-reporting countries
grew from 20 to 29 percent in the past two years.
As a consequence, FAO has had to estimate more
of the data. It is crucial that countries give due
importance to collecting catch statistics and
transmitting them to FAO, to ensure that the
qualit y of the time series is maintained.
Total marine catches by China, by far the world’s
top producer, were stable in 2016, but the
inclusion of a progressive catch reduction policy
in the national Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for
2016 –2020 is expected to result in significant
decreases in coming years, with a predicted
reduction of more than 5 million tonnes by 2020
(see Box 31 under “Outlook” in Part 4).
In 2016 China reported about 2 million tonnes from
its “distant water fishery”, but provided details on
species and fishing area only for those catches
marketed in China (about 24 percent of distant-
water catches). In the absence of information, the
remaining 1.5 million tonnes have been entered in
the FAO database under “marine fishes nei [not
elsewhere included]” in fishing area 61, Northwest
Pacific, possibly overstating the catches of that area.
Thus a great quantity of distant-water catches by
China is in the FAO database, although partly not
under the correct fishing area and not ascribed
down to species level.
FAO continues to support projects to improve
national data collection systems, including
sampling schemes based on sound statistical
analysis, coverage of fisheries subsectors not
sampled before, and standardization of sampling
at landing sites. FAO is well aware that in many
cases an upgraded system may result in an
increase of registered and reported catches,
creating an apparent disruption of the national
trend (Garibaldi, 2012; FAO, 2016c, p. 16). This
issue is difficult to address, but FAO tries to
minimize its impact through backward revision
of the catch statistics in the database, carried out
in collaboration with national offices whenever
possible. Although improved data collection
systems have inf luenced some national trends,
given the large number of countries and
territories in the FAO capture database (more
than 230), even significant revisions (as in the
case of Myanmar; see details in the following
sections) have not altered the global trend.
Starting with 2015 data and going back to 2006,
FAO revised Myanmar’s marine and inland
catches substantially downward, on the basis of
structural data that are more reliable than the
official catch statistics which are based on target
levels. Before the revision Myanmar ranked ninth
as marine capture producer, whereas it now ranks
seventeenth. FAO had questioned the data for
this countr y since 2009, when the average annual
growth of marine catches was reported to be
above 8 percent even after the 2008 cyclone
Nargis caused the worst natural disaster in the
countr y’s recorded histor y. FAO is currently
running a project to improve fisher y data
collection in Myanmar’s Yangon region. If
successful, the methodolog y could later be
expanded to the whole countr y.  »
Marine capture production
World total marine catch was 81.2 million tonnes
in 2015 and 79.3 million tonnes in 2016,
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