Approches participatives: une solution pour le suivi des pêcheries récifales?

Abstract

In order to ensure a sustainable management of reef fisheries, data need to be collected regularly on the effect of these fisheries on both fish resources and the ecosystems that sustain them. Habitat and resources monitoring programs can provide such information, but are difficult to implement as they involve a range of technical, financial and human resources. Regarding these problems, the involvement of the local population in monitoring programs, called participatory monitoring, seems to offer solutions. Indeed, participatory monitoring has the potential of increasing the number of data collected at low cost, while taking advantage of the traditional ecological knowledge available locally. Some questions need clarifying, however: which methods can bring relevant information for the monitoring of reef fisheries while being appropriate to the motivations and skills of the local population? Is the degree of participation of the local population sufficient to make the monitoring program work, particularly over the long term? To answer these questions, participatory monitoring methods commonly used for coral reef ecosystems have been implemented to assess reef fisheries at three different sites: Moorea island and Tikehau atoll in French Polynesia, and the Bay of Tulear in Madagascar. While highlighting the relevance of some participatory monitoring programs for snapshot and large-scale surveys, the results of this study also show their lesser interest for regular data gathering on long-time scales. In any case, strong coordination and supervision by scientists are considered essential. © 2014 NSS-Dialogues, EDP Sciences.