Goal /Overall Objectives

• Dissemination of the appropriate technologies and practices to support sustainable utilization of coastal and marine fisheries resources including capture fisheries, marine engineering, and fishery information system
• Strengthening the collaboration with relevant national, regional, and international agencies

Expected Outcomes/Outputs

Through the technology transfer and development, it is envisaged that capture process will be improved. In addition, coordination and collaboration with other relevant agencies on the issues related to fishing technology, marine engineering, fisheries information and database will also be strengthened.

Project Description

1. Promotion of appropriate technologies and practices of fishing and marine engineering

Series of activities have been focused on the promotion on appropriate technology and practices of fishing and marine engineering. Activities on energy saving in fishing emphasized on fishing gear design and standard energy auditing for shrimp trawlers in the Gulf of Thailand. The outputs include comprehensive scientific report of the result from the field test onboard trawlers. In order to investigate the impact of fishing gear and underwater structure of fishing gear, by-catch observation, productivity and quality of catch, sub-project activity, underwater camera system for observing fishing gear has been proposed and introduced to perform a limited scope study in partnership with relevant institute, agencies and private company to conduct field test and demonstrate the advantage of using underwater camera system, so-called CatchCam real-time video/lighting system as a sustainable productivity tool in Thai trawl fisheries. SEAFDEC/TD in collaboration with Department of Fisheries, Thailand has carried out the improvement of fishing port facilities in Rayong Province, eastern part of Gulf of Thailand. There are five (5) sub-activities under this program as follows;

Sub-Activity 1: Study on the energy use in fishing practices, i.e. low energy consumption trawl net (LEC-trawl), FAO Energy Audit for trawlers in the Gulf of Thailand

Sub-activity 2: Advanced sustainable technology: underwater camera system for observation fishing operation

Sub-activity 3: Manual for fishing technology

Sub-Activity 4: Fishing technology improvement to specific purposed, e.g. reducing man-power in fisheries, fish sampling, and etc.

Sub-Activity 5: Improvement on fishing port facilities

2. Fisheries research on impact of fishing practices to marine ecosystem

This program has been focused on impact of fishing practices to marine ecosystem. Activities have been jointly implemented by SEAFDEC, Department of Fisheries Thailand and relevant institute & agencies e.g. RIHN (Research Institute of Humanity and Nature), and Department of Marine Technology of Burapha University, aiming to monitor the change of bottom sediment around the set net area and monitoring discards and garbage in small-scale gillnet fisheries operating in the coastal area of Rayong Province. There are 2 Sub-activities under this program as follows;

Sub-Activity 1: Research on environmental impact from fishing operation.

Sub-Activity 2: Study on bycatch and discards from fishing operation.

3. Database for fisheries resources survey

SEAFDEC Training department in collaboration with Deep Sea Fisheries Technology Research and Development Institute (DFTRDI), Department of Fisheries, Thailand has developed database system for managing data from the cruise resource surveys. The activities aimed to harmonize data collection for the research cruise survey on fisheries resources between DFTRDI of Department of Fisheries, Thailand and SEAFDEC/TD. Since 2013, a series of workshop to develop a manual for data collection of the fisheries resources survey onboard research vessels (R/V Chulabhorn, R/V Mahidol, M.V. SEAFDEC, and M.V. SEAFDEC2). SEAFDEC/TD and DFTRDI has verified the systematic data collecting, data storage, manage and sharing in order to improve national database for data collection from the cruise survey of their national research vessels for future data compilation.

Sub-Activity 1: Development of database system for management of data from the cruise surveys