Six Priority Fisheries Management Areas Proposed for Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste should prioritize fisheries management areas in six sites along its North Coast to ensure efficient investments in the protection and management of the Lesser Sunda Ecoregion.

This is the key finding from an analysis by Conservation International (CI), published recently with the support of the Australian Government.

In the preface to the report, Timor-Leste’s Secretary of State for Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Hon. Rafael Pereira Gonçalves, endorses the finding, noting that the identified priority areas are “key sites that are important for fisheries productivity, which the government recognizes as priority sites to be pursued for improved management.”

Mr. Gonçalves adds, “This report provides the preliminary notes to guide discussions about investments in managing Timor-Leste’s coastal and marine resources.”

Prepared in cooperation with the Timor-Leste Government, the report identifies the priority sites as Atauro, Batugade, Behau, Metinaro, Buruma, and Mehara. These sites, or parts of them, were not included in the marine protected area (MPA) network design developed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in 2009, which aimed to guide the governments of Indonesia and Timor-Leste in establishing a resilient MPA network in the Lesser Sunda Ecoregion.

The Lesser Sunda, which extends from Bali, Indonesia, to Timor-Leste, is one of 11 ecoregions in the Coral Triangle.

“The preliminary analysis for the Lesser Sunda MPA design… has certain gaps; there are habitats and ecological features that did not show up as important in the initial design due to the paucity of data at the time,” the report notes, adding that several ecologically important sites proposed in the design have also experienced “considerable damage.”

More recent data, including information collected by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2013, highlight the importance—particularly from a fisheries sustainability perspective—of areas not captured in the 2009 analysis. For example, only part of Atauro Island was included in the 2009 design, but new data suggest that the entire marine habitat surrounding the island is ecologically important and crucial to the livelihoods of local communities.

“Data from NOAA [have] clearly shown correlations between fish biomass and population density in different parts of the island. Furthermore, fish biomass within the proposed protected areas was markedly lower than in sites under no form of management but with lower population densities,” the report states. It recommends that the entire island should be considered a management priority zone.

The report also notes that several smaller sites, though significantly smaller than those in the Lesser Sunda MPA design, “would be useful to focus management on in order to achieve maximum replenishment benefits in the short to medium term.”

In his preface, Mr. Gonçalves expresses hope that the report “marks the first step in a journey towards the development of a Policy and Strategy for Sustainable Development of the Marine Fisheries Sector in Timor-Leste.”

To view the CI report, click here.

To view TNC’s 2009 report on the development of a scientific MPA network design for the Lesser Sunda Ecoregion, click here (external link).