An assessment of local fisheries in Diego-Suarez Bay, Madagascar

2 Methods and Materials
2.1 Survey area and study sectors
The study took place from July 2005 to December 2008 around Diego-Suarez Bay, Northern Madagascar.
Diego-Suarez Bay is a shallow tropical bay (mean depth 30m), open to the Indian Ocean in the east. The
interior of the bay is characterised by numerous small islands or Nosy(s) as they are known in Malagasy,
and a coastline lined with many, almost continuous, shallow fringing reefs. The bay has been divided into
study sectors and islands to enable long-term monitoring by SEE Frontier Madagascar (figure 1). Each
sector/island has been further divided into study sites (ranging from 2-26 sites per sector/island) with each
site being a maximum of 300m apart from each other. Ramena is a small fishing village west of the
mouth of the bay (figure 1), which is popular with tourists. Fishing is the main activity for locals in this
village, with some fishermen catering for tourist excursions as well. Antsisikala in the north of the bay
(figure 1) is a small village with approximately 50 houses. They generate the majority of their income
through zebu farming, while fishing is principally for subsistence and small-scale trading.
Figure 1. Map of Diego-Suarez Bay, displaying 11 designated study sectors and islands
2.2 Survey Methods
To fulfil the objectives of the study, four survey methods were used:
• Questionnaires to gain information on the current status of the fishery and fishermen’s opinions.
• Line Intercept Transect (LIT) to determine the percentage of hard coral cover at each study site
(part of a SEE Frontier long-term monitoring project).
• Underwater Visual Census (UVC) to calculate the biomass of fish at each site (part of a SEE
Frontier long-term monitoring project).
• Visual observations of artisanal fishing effort, techniques used and species targeted.
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