Expanding our understanding of bottom trawl fisheries in China

This month, our PhD candidate and researcher, Yixuan Chen, is heading to China for her fieldwork and to investigate what keeps bottom trawling in operation despite its heavy costs.

In Dongshan, Fujian, Yixuan will interview fishers and buyers at local fishing ports, continuing her studies of the supply chain of unsorted landings. Unsorted landings, often documented as “trash fish”, refer to the component of catch containing a mixture of species and small-sized individuals – normally, they have a low market value, and fishers do not separate them by their taxa.

By tracking where these catches go, who buys them, and whether the same catch are available from sources other than bottom trawling, Yixuan hopes to find out to what extent of bottom trawl catches are needed by market demand.

This fieldwork builds on research she began last year. In her thesis work, Yixuan mapped out species commonly found in unsorted landings and resolved their biological characteristics, including what life stage they are in and how vulnerable they are to trawling. She also looked at juveniles of commercially important fish in the unsorted catch, exploring what is lost when they are removed from the ocean before they can mature and reproduce.

During her time in China, Yixuan will also collect data from multiple coastal cities to study how a new fishery subsidy may be influencing the industry. Previously, fuel subsidies were granted to fishers based on their vessel’s engine power, but new rules introduced in 2021 require fishers to meet conditions that aim to encourage sustainable fishing behaviours. Yixuan will use the data from her fieldwork to investigate whether this shift can help explain some of the changes in bottom trawl fisheries since it was implemented.

We believe that ultimately, Yixuan’s findings will offer valuable insights that may guide future fisheries management and conservation policy in China.