Intervention

WorldFish and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries iteratively co-created an open source, near-real-time digital system to record and analysis the catch and effort of small-scale fisheries of Timor-Leste.

Impact

PeskAAS, the only system used for recording vessel activities and fish landings in the country. PeskAAS is used by the vernment of Timor-Leste's Department of Fisheries to estimate national fisheries production from data collected at key landing sites in each of the 11 coastal districts. These data are used for reporting to UN-FAO and for developing specific fisheries management plans for high value species. Timor-Leste has an EEZ of 70,326 km2, however, currently the national fleet is limited to small-scale vessels in territorial waters (<12nm from the coast), representing an area of 15,690 km2. As such, this marine area is under improved fisheries management through the real-time monitoring of fishing activities and catch, which provides timely data for timely decision making. It has been particularly valuable through the COVID19 pandemic to visualise the effects of movement restrictions and market closures on food production and livelihoods in coastal areas.

Resources

• Peskas decision dashboard
• News report of Timor-Leste vernment uptake of the Peskas monitoring system