Editor's note

This issue’s central theme is pressure on and depletion of marine resources.

Liz Matthews reports on the impacts to corals reefs and associated species in Palau, where a 53-mile coastal road is being cut through forests and mangroves. Numerous secondary activities are resulting in sedimentation, which has flowed downstream onto reef flats. Palau’s reefs are also being impacted by coral bleaching (an event in 1998 that killed nearly 90 per cent of the Acropora sp. corals on many reefs, and bleached and killed many giant clams as well). In Papua New Guinea, Jeff Kinch reports that human population growth has had, and will continue to have, an increasing effect on marine resource use in the Louisiade Islands. He also notes that with increased shellfish exploitation, bivalve shell morphology changes. He explains that gathering within a population over a period of time produces a consistent mortality of large shell individuals. This, combined with the continual gathering of older, larger-sized individuals is resulting in a general reduction in size range. Thus, the heavier the exploitation, the more dominant the younger age classes will become. An entirely different kind of pressure on marine resources is occuring in the west African nation of Guinea. Peter Lowry from FAO reports that industrial fishing boats made 450 illegal incursions into the nation’s coastal waters in 2002. These boats destroy the nets of smaller boats when they drag their heavy industrial nets over them. Vidhisha Samarasekara says that habitat conversion, pollution, and increasing population pressure are wreaking havoc on mangrove forests and causing dramatic declines in fish stocks.

This issue of the bulletin discusses the ways in which communities are dealing with these problems. I welcome any feedback on the articles in this issue and encourage you to submit articles about women and community fishing issues from your country.

Kim Des Rochers