Tonga PROCFish/C - Socio-Economic survey 2008

The coastal component of the Pacific Regional Oceanic and Coastal Fisheries Development Programme (PROCFish/C) conducted fieldwork in four locations around the Kingdom of Tonga in April to June, September and October 2008. This followed previous work funded by the MacArthur Foundation at six locations in the Kingdom of Tonga in November and December 2001, and March to June 2002 under “The joint application of demography and ecology in evaluating the role of coastal fisheries resources in Pacific Islands: the DemEcoFish project”. The Kingdom of Tonga is one of 17 Pacific Island countries and territories being surveyed over a 5–6 year period by PROCFish/C or its associated programme CoFish (Pacific Regional Coastal Fisheries Development Programme).

The aim of the survey work was to provide baseline information on the status of reef fisheries, and to help fill the massive information gap that hinders the effective management of reef fisheries.

Other programme outputs include:
• implementation of the first comprehensive multi-country comparative assessment of reef fisheries (finfish, invertebrates and socioeconomics) ever undertaken in the Pacific Islands region using identical methodologies at each site;
• dissemination of country reports that comprise a set of ‘reef fisheries profiles’ for the sites in each country in order to provide information for coastal fisheries development and management planning;
• development of a set of indicators (or reference points to fishery status) to provide guidance when developing local and national reef fishery management plans and monitoring programmes; and
• development of data and information management systems, including regional and national databases.

Survey work in the Kingdom of Tonga covered three disciplines (finfish, invertebrate and socioeconomic) in each site, with programme scientists and several local counterparts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. The fieldwork included capacity building for the local counterparts through instruction on survey methodologies in all three disciplines, including the collection of data and inputting the data into the programme’s database.

In the Kingdom of Tonga, the four sites selected for the survey were Ha’atafu and Manuka on Tongatapu, and Koulo and Lofanga on Ha’apai.

Version 01: This is the final, clean, labelled and anonymized version of the Master file.

-HOUSEHOLD: Household size and composition; Ranked sources of income and average household expenditure level; Average household consumption patterns and sources; Average number of fishers and boats per household.
-INDIVIDUAL: Education level of adult members of the household; When, how often and during which months of the year fishers go out to particulat habitats; Average catch size; Catch composition; Fishing techniques; Proportion of the catch targeted for subsistence, gift and sale, and preservation; How finfish and invertebrates are preserved; Community's fishing grounds; Management rules; Major problems relating to the use/management of the community's marine resources; Quantities by species or groups marketed; Quality and processing level of species marketed; Price in local currency/USD; Client groups; Quantitative and qualitative changes in marketing perceived over a period of time.

* Collection start: 2008
* Collection end: 2008