Integrated assessment of the coastal fishery production systems in French Guiana

Like many cases of tropical small-scale fisheries, the French Guiana coastal fishery is characterized by the high fish biodiversity of its ecosystem, the weak selectivity of the fleets exploiting the resources and the heterogeneity of the vessels in terms of size and fishing techniques. We use Rapfish method [Pitcher & Preikshot, 2001] to assess sustainability within 11 fishery systems in the ecological, economic, social and technological fields through 27 attributes. Overall results point out an average performance in the scale of sustainability. Comparisons made among the FSs show a gradient of sustainability performance from the west coast to the east coast. Several recommendations have been formulated to raise the current ‘sustainability’ status as for example the reduction of discards. This study is postulated as a complementary tool to bioeconomic model in order to define a sustainable management of the French Guiana costal fishery.