The importance of the Banda Sea for tuna conservation area: A review of studies on the biology and the ecology of tuna

Abstract

Tuna exploitation in the Banda Sea was started when the Indonesian government gave access to the Japanese fleet under the bilateral cooperation of the Banda Sea Agreement (BSA) in 1975-1980. Several studies were conducted afterward in revealing the magnitude of tuna resources in the Banda Sea. In this paper, we reviewed the tuna studies that were done in the Banda Sea over the periods of 1980-2017 to improve our understanding on the biology and ecology of tuna in the region as the basis for future studies. Overall, we reviewed 29 publications consisted of eight research themes; biodiversity (5), catch composition (8), fish aggregating device (FAD) (2), fishing ground (2), growth-population (3), harvest-effort strategy (4), reproduction (4), and tagging (1). The Snellius II expedition in 1984-1985 was a remarkable study covering almost whole area of the Banda Sea. The study of catch composition and biodiversity were dominant in recent decade indicating there was urgent need to manage the tuna fisheries in the Banda Sea to preserve the tuna stock. Since the Banda Sea is considered as a tuna conservation area, the future studies should be focussed on the scientific findings to support the regulation.