Call to set up more marine reserves to facilitate fisheries management

THE Fisheries Department has been urged to establish multiple marine reserves to facilitate the department's fisheries management operations which will ultimately benefit Brunei both environmentally and economically in the long run.

Dr Peter J Mous, a fisheries and protected areas specialist who was recently involved in doing a feasibility study on setting up marine protected areas (MPAs) in Brunei said that the department would not have to "start from scratch" as zoned marine areas were already in place.

He suggested that a network of reserves would, however, become a good additional to the types of fisheries management that have already been implemented in Brunei.

The specialist explained that depending on the situations, how marine reserves look and work, differs by locality.

"But the idea of a network is that you have three or four areas and in between these areas... in the sense that there is some connectivity so that these three or four blocks are connected to each other."

"Now the benefit of having a marine reserve network is that you can cover a much larger area. Here in Brunei, the choice is that we can make either one large reserve or a network of three smaller reserves."

Dr Mous shared that his main proposal to the department was that the three reserves would still make a substantial size and that the main idea was to have them connected.

"Now marine reserves especially in combination with better fisheries management, can help to recover those (fish) stocks. Under certain conditions, I mean these reserves need to be large enough, they have to be real reserves, we cannot allow any fishing inside these reserves for them to work properly."

He explained that, if implemented, these reserves could surely serve the need of biodiversity conservation.

"We (Brunei) will have reefs that look more like pristine reefs as if they have never been touched by mankind. At this moment, you can clearly see that these reefs have been hammered by fisheries, they look different (due to overexploitation)," he said.

He added that the implementation of these reserves could also improve the quality of dive sites in the Sultanate and make them more attractive.

"I will not say at this moment, they are not good dive sites (in Brunei) but they could be much better."

He went on to say that that these reserves would result in a build-up of fish stocks inside them.

"Now if you sort of tweak the fisheries management in surrounding fishing grounds, these reserves will also start to replenish these surrounding fishing grounds... (it) is actually internationally accepted science right now that these reserves do help to sustain fishing in the areas around these reserves."

"From I would say a long-term economic development perspective it would really be helpful to implement a reserve network."

The Brunei Times