Abstract

Mica Smith and Daniel Pauly*

Sustainable fisheries, both marine and inland, are critical in supporting the livelihood and health of many people, including Africans. However, without the reporting of fisheries catch data, it is difficult to evaluate positive or negative trends and thus assess the performance and status of these fisheries and manage them effectively. Peer-reviewed, published literature has broadly established that the national fisheries catch data submitted to (and subsequently published by) the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) by its member countries can be underreported, similarly to the catches of marine fisheries, which have been globally underreported by about 50% since the year 1950. Focused on the fisheries of Africa, this presents a new approach for quantifying likely underreporting in data-sparse settings, which illustrates that African inland fisheries catches tend to be more strongly underreported than marine fisheries catches, even when reported by the same country. Overall, the inland fisheries catches of most African countries and territories is about double the officially reported catch for the period 1950 to 2019.