Eritrea's Coastal Marine and Island Biodiversity Conservation Project

4. Fisheries
4.1. Fisheries Resources and Potential
The Eritrean Red Sea is generally recognized as being highly favorable for the development of artisanal fisheries. Important coral reefs areas, extensive
surface of soft bottoms and numerous shelters of the Dahlak archipelago plateau and, to the north and south of this plateau, short distances to the
continental shelf break, are all conditions conducive to such development. Diversified coral reef communities, extensive mangrove mud flats, sea grass
or seaweeds beds and standing kelps harbor diversified commercially important fisheries resources. Outside the coralline zones its sedimentary floors,
while not particularly attractive for artisanal demersal fishing activities, offer quite favorable conditions for bottom trawling operations.
Eritrea possesses a variety of fish resources as per their natural habitats:
(a) Soft bottom demersal fishes and shrimps, caught by trawlers, such as lizard fishes threadfin breams and catfishes,
(b) Hard bottom demersal & reef fishes (food and ornamental), found on rocky bottoms and caught by industrial trawlers and by hook & line artisanal
fishermen and long-liners such as snappers, emperors, grunts, job fishes, groupers, etc.,
(c) Small pelagic, such as Sardines and Anchovies that are targets for beach-seines and purse-seines
(d) Large pelagic, usually caught by gill nets and occasionally as a by-catch in commercial trawlers mostly tunas and mackerels
(e) The sharks that are caught for their highly valuable fins rather than the body flesh
(f) Specialized fisheries such as sea cucumber, snail nail and Trochus
(g) Unexploited species such as shellfish that include crabs, sepia, lobsters, squids and octopus
No comprehensive quantitative surveys of the resources and the productivity of the Eritrean Red Sea have been carried out, although various short-term
exploratory surveys for specific stocks were conducted between the mid-1950s and the late 1990s. Several attempts have been made to estimate the
maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of the Eritrean marine fish resources and they fluctuate between a high of 79,500 and a low of 36,000 tons per year.
These estimated figures are derived from catch rates, experimental fishing, extrapolation from other areas or neighboring countries and biomass
estimations from limited trawled areas. Therefore they should be considered with caution as the values are very much greater than actual landings, even
in the most productive years.
4.2. Historical and Current Fisheries Catch Trends
Fisheries in Eritrea started to develop in the 1960s and were active until early 1970s. The fisheries grew very quickly mainly due to the presence of
fishmeal industries, and was dominated by small pelagic. Accordingly, catch records of those periods had reached 20,000 MT per year.
State of the Coast Eritrea, 2006-2007 22