United Arab Emirates

The survey is the initiative of the GCC Fisheries Committee and is being jointly funded by the six member countries.

Member countries will use the results of the first joint GCC marine fisheries study to plan sustainable fisheries development within their territorial waters. Supervised by Kuwait Fisheries Research Institute, the survey started in Kuwait in October 2008 and will end in Oman in three years time.

Fisheries is an important sector in many Gulf countries and is a traditional occupation in many coastal communities. With arid desert conditions restricting agricultural activities in the region, fisheries are an important domestic source of food production.

Gulf countries working to promote fisheries development include the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where fish processing for re-export has begun to develop in recent years. The results of the GCC fisheries survey are awaited with interest in the UAE, which has used government funding and specially drafted regulations to prevent over exploitation of marine resources and to promote sustainable fisheries development for more than a decade.

“After the survey is completed we hope to compare the results with our 2001 national fisheries survey results so we will know more about Gulf marine life, pollution and other matters. There are a lot of rumours. People say there are not many fish but this is not clear,” commented Ahmed Al Janahi, fisheries director at the Department of Fisheries.

The UAE's fishing catch has declined during the past decade and based on government figures is estimated at about 90,000 metric tons (mt) per year at present compared with 118,000mt in 1999. Although the annual catch fluctuates, the trend is downward with increased domestic consumption and the growth of fish processing for export relying increasing on fish imports. Some fish are imported fresh from nearby countries along with frozen fish for processing.

Fuel costs have affected the fish catch recently, Mr Al Janahi noted: “Fisheries are suffering from high priced diesel fuel. Fishermen are reducing their trips to avoid costs.”

The UAE waters are home to approximately 280 fish species including around 20 commercial species.

Migratory fish such as kingfish, tuna and Indian mackerel begin arriving from November until the end of May. The bottom fish season starts when the cold water arrives in October and continues until the end of June.

Demersal fish are available from January to June. Sea bream are available in larger numbers in January while emperor fish are caught mostly in May and June.

Fishing in the UAE still is artisanal in nature and most of the wild catch is sold fresh at dockside auctions. Most of the catch is bought by traders who sell to local wet markets and processing plants.

The UAE consists of seven emirates. The oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi has the UAE's largest fishing industry, followed by Dubai, Sharjah and Fujairah. The decline in Abu Dhabi's catch has been the main cause of the overall drop in the country's total fish catch.

Dubai, the UAE's business and tourist centre, is the country's biggest fish consuming market followed by Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. The east coast is the major fishing area with Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah having the largest fishery stocks.

According to Fishery Department figures, at the start of 2006 some 5,571 fishing boats were registered in the UAE, the figure remaining constant for the three previous years, but down 26% from 7,681 fishing boats registered in 1999.

The number of licensed fishermen at the start of 2006 was 11,780, the number having dropped by about one third over the three previous years. Not all fishermen are full time and may have other jobs as well.

Part time fishermen often use small speedboats for fishing. These fishermen travel for two to three hours to their fishing grounds to catch mostly bottom and pelagic fish, and occasionally surface fish. Larger traditional doha fishing boats typically depart for eight day fishing trips to catch bottom fish only.

One reason that fishing boat and fishermen numbers have fallen is stricter enforcement of regulations to protect the UAE's marine fish industry and government policy to ensure the sector remains under local management.

“Before 2000 we had problems. Lots of fishermen were not local. Then Law 23/1999 was issued which means local fishermen own the fishing boats,” Mr Al Janahi explained. “Now the captain must be local but the crew can be Indian and other nationalities. We consider most fishermen are local. A 2002 study by a New Zealand consultant with the Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency showed that we must have a registration system to prevent overfishing. From 2003 we stopped issuing new licenses for new fishing boats.”

Law 23/1999 is known as the Exploitation, Development and Protection of Fisheries in UAE Waters Law. The law covers fisheries protection, exploitation and conservation, along with the import and re-export of fisheries to other countries by the fish processing industry.

Following government reorganisation, the Department of Fisheries is under the Ministry of Environment and Water, having previously been under the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries.

The Fisheries Department provides various services to the fishing community including the registration of fishermen and licensing of fishing boats. Support is provided to the fishing industry in various ways including through subsidies for marine engines and the free maintenance of fishing boats for local fishermen.

“There is a fisherman subsidy for outboard motors and we give them half the purchase price – for either 75hp or 115hp engines that burn petrol or diesel,” Mr Al Janahi said. “The number of motors we subsidise depends on the budget we get from the government. We try to bring more subsidies. Also, we are trying to reduce fishing boat license fees.

“We are studying the fuel subsidy situation, not just for fishermen but everyone. The government is studying this and we hope they will have a solution.”

Support also is provided through fishermen training programmes and workshops. More professional manpower is needed in fisheries research and data collection to ensure the fisheries sector can expand and develop in future.

“We cooperate with the coast guard for fishermen training but there is not much training provided yet and we are asking universities and colleges to support this,” Mr Al Janahi said. “We still want them to produce more fishing boat captains, fishery data collectors, biological researchers and others. Data managers are a problem as their salaries are not high and they leave fisheries for other industries.”

The Fisheries Department is also keen to promote aquaculture and mariculture. The department also plans to increase support to traditional fishing cooperatives that also have an important role to play in sustainable fisheries development.

“We give fishermen training in aquaculture and give them cage nets. We show them how to keep fish,” Mr Al Janahi explained. “One of our aims is how to increase their incomes. We have 12 fishing cooperative societies for the whole of the UAE. We hope they can help increase fishermen incomes.”

The Marine Resources Research Centre (MRRC) at Umm Al Qaiwain is an import resource supporting the Fishery Department's fisheries conservation and development programme. The centre's main activities include fisheries stock assessment studies and research into the breeding and sea release of important commercial fish species such as rabbit fish, sea bream and mullet.

MRRC conducts studies on fish and shrimp aquaculture, research into the effect of oil spills on the survival of fish species, pond culture experiments, coastal water hydrographic and larvae surveys, mangrove cultivation experiments and other research projects.

MRRC's responsibilities include proposing regulations for the Ministry of Environment and Water to implement to protect fishery resources and the marine environment in the UAE's territorial waters. The importance of the centre's activities have increased with the development of offshore oil exploration and production since the 1970s and the resulting increased threat of marine pollution hazards from oil spills, tanker accidents, and ships' and industrial waste discharge.

Since aquaculture is planned to play in the development of fish production in the UAE, MRRC has given special emphasis to aquaculture experiments in its programme for certain important fish species, in particular rabbit fish, sea bream and grouper. Induced spawning, using hormones, has been adopted for rabbit fish culture, while eggs collected from the specially maintained brood stocks at MRRC are used for the culture of sea bream and grouper.

“We run aquaculture research under the Marine Resources Research Centre,” Mr Al Janahi said. “We offer consultancy services for public and private companies to help establish fisheries and aquaculture businesses. We breed sea bream, grouper and rabbit fish. We release the fingerlings in protected areas.

“We need more support from the government. We want to improve the fishery research centre, to make it more commercial and support aquaculture. We want to introduce more aquaculture. Aquaculture is the future, not just here but for the whole world.”

While the UAE is near self-sufficient in fishery resources for its domestic needs, the government is concerned to ensure the fishing industry's long term sustainability due to the importance of fishing as a traditional artisan industry.

Measures in place to support sustainable fisheries include a ban on catching small fish sizes, and a ban on fishing gear and practices that harm fishery resources including nylon nets, drift nets and double nets, also bottom hook lines, spear guns, explosives, chemicals and poison.

Regulations governing fishing boats and gear are in place to ensure sustainable fishing activities including limits on fishing boat numbers and fishing equipment usage.

Only speed boats and traditional artisanal boats with outboard motors are permitted to fish in UAE waters. Mechanised boats including trawlers, purse seiners and long liners are banned.

“From 1 May to 1 October we stop local fish exports for the summer season. Fish processing companies are not allowed to buy fish from the market then. They import their supplies. This regulation stopping summer local fish exports was passed by the Cabinet in 2004,” Mr Al Janahi said, noting that only local fishermen are permitted to export local fish species during approved months of the year.

“We ban local fish exports for five months but we have companies bringing fish here from Oman, Iran and Pakistan to process them for export.”

During the past few years the UAE has emerged as an important fish trading market within the Gulf region. The Fisheries Department forecasts that should the rate of growth continue at its present rate, the UAE will overtake Oman in terms of the volume of fish traded and consumed.

The UAE is developing into a hub for fish re-exporting into the Gulf region and the Middle East. Fresh fish imports for export processing come mainly from Oman and Iran at present while frozen fish are imported mainly from the Asia-Pacific region.

Fish imported for processing and re-export or simply repacking and export include pomfret from India, cuttlefish, shrimp, Alaska Pollock, sea bream, tilapia from China and Nile perch.

Increasingly fish are being imported from African countries for processing and export to Europe due to the lack of modern storage and processing facilities in many African countries.

Over 60 companies process fishery products in the UAE of which 12 companies have EU approval. These export processed products including king fish to European Union countries. The processing plants are locally owned but employ overseas workers for processing work. Most of the processing plants are located in Dubai and Ajman.