Classification of artisanal fisheries métiers in Ghana : a case study of the Central region

The management of multi-species fisheries is usually challenging because of the high number of fleets and gears targeting numerous species. In recent times, the concept of metiers has been used to enable further understanding of spatio-temporal variation of species and behaviour of fishers. In the present study, an output-based approach (i.e. the use of landing data) was used to identify potential metiers in the artisanal fisheries of the Central region of Ghana. The landing data was over a five-year period – 2004-2008 and based on species caught by five main gears, namely Ali-Poli-Watsa (a type of purse seine net), beach seine, drift gill net, hook and line and set net gears. Multivariate analyses, namely Canonical Correspondence Analysis, Redundancy Analysis (RDA) and Generalized Additive Models (GAM) – were used to analyze catch per unit effort (CPUE) and revenue per unit effort (RPUE) on yearly and monthly basis respectively. The environmental variables used in the multivariate analyses were gear, year, month and temperature. It was observed that changes in catch and revenue rates followed seasonal patterns, with some gears recording their maximum revenue rates in the second semester of the year. Initially, three major gear groups were identified. Subsequent analyses led to the generation of two models – prey-gear niche and niche timeline – to further explain the interactions of the various gears across months and the implications of these to fisheries management was discussed. The results from the multivariate analyses were supplemented with data obtained from interviews of fishers in Winneba fishing community. It was observed that even though fishers had high fidelity to particular gears during fishing seasons, they sometimes diversified their target species. Lack of an alternative occupation to fishers threaten their livelihoods, thus it was recommended that fisheries managers or scientists explore ways of enhancing the resilience of fishers.