The presentation is based on 30 years of experience on small-scale fisheries and will give an outline on how Professor Kolding’s visions for aligning and combining three major objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Better human nutrition and health, more food, and least ecological impacts from sustainably harvesting our aquatic ecosystems. Professor Kolding will also briefly outline a new multidisciplinary project in Africa, which will pursue these three objectives by focusing on small fish.

1. Nourishing the world with
small fish
Jeppe Kolding, University of Bergen
WorldFish, Penang 5. November 2018

2. Unutilized?
Courtesy of Geir Huse

3. Still
Waters:
The Global
Fish Crisis
http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/global-fish-crisis-
1,000
Google scholar
hits for
fisheries
crisis

4. Global challenges
June 2016

5. Jeppe Kolding, Northern Kenya 1984

6. Food security is not just food

7. • Vitamin A (animal-source foods (ASF) have the only preformed
source, retinol; fish also has vitamin A2 - dehydroretinol)
• Vitamin B12 (animal-source foods are the only dietary source)
• Riboflavin
• Vitamin D (animal-source foods are the only dietary source)
• Vitamin E
• Bioavailable iron (animal-source foods are the only dietary source
of haem iron)
• Bioavailable zinc, calcium, phosphorus, selenium, iodine …
Fish and other Aquatic Animals: Rich in Several
Essential Micronutrients

8. Holtgrieve and Allison (2014) based on FAO and WB data

9. Global production fisheries & aquaculture
Tacon & Metian 2015 Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture
70%
Nearly half
from China

10. Aquaculture production must more than double by
2050 to satisfy projected fish demand
Sources: Production data 1961–2010: FAO (2014a), FAO (2014b).
Aquaculture production projections 2011–2050: WorldFish’ calculations
assuming a linear growth rate of 2 Mt per year.
Milliontons

11. The role of
aquaculture?
“..in terms of efficiency,
fish in aquaculture
systems are very
efficient converters of
feed into protein – in
fact far more efficient
than most terrestrial
livestock system.”
“Production of 1 kg of beef protein requires 61 kg of grain,
production of 1 kg of pork protein requires 38 kg of grain,
while fish only requires 13.5 kg (Hall et al. 2011).”

12. Feed conversion efficiency (FCR) in aquaculture
Fry et al. 2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13
Feed conversion (kg of feed / kg wet gain)

14. Fish do not eat grain, they eat fish
Cartoon by Frits Ahlefelt
Master, I marvel how the fishes live in
the sea. Why, as men do a-land; the
great ones eat up the little ones.
Shakespeare, Pericles, prince of Tyre
It takes 5 kg of small fish to produce 1 kg large

15. Major categories of feed ingredients in
aquaculture feeds
Tacon & Metian 2015 Reviews in Fisheries Science & Aquaculture
72 %
Protein
and oil
47 % 80 % 67 %
% = total combined protein and oil
Ca 2.5 x higher than pig and poultry feed

16. Feed and food
Fish are very efficient
metabolizers of protein
because of low cost of nitrogen
excretion, but they are very
poor metabolizers of
carbohydrates, the cheapest
and most abundant energy
source in Nature
FCR = kg
formula feed
pr kg meat
proportion
protein + fat
in feed
kg meat pr
kg protein +
fat
Edible Yield
fraction
Kg edible
meat per
kg P+F
cost
relative to
cheapest
Salmon/trout 1.20 0.80 1.04 0.683 0.71 1.42
Carp/Tilapia 1.70 0.40 1.47 0.600 0.88 1.31
Chicken 1.79 0.20 2.79 0.461 1.29 1.00
Pig 2.63 0.20 1.90 0.521 0.99 1.47
Sources:
FCR from Torrissen et al 2013 and Tacon and Metian 2015
Protein and fat proportion from Tacon and Metian 2015
Edible yield fraction from Torrissen et al 2013
Relative prices are approximations from the internet

17. Feed conversion efficiency in aquaculture
Fry et al. 2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13
is not just about feed in versus food out! The devil is in the details
Protein and calorie retention. Dots represent sample means and bars represent
standard deviation. Higher values indicate more efficient retention

18. Global planteproduksjon
Milliarder tonn karbon (Giga t)
Land Hav
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Global plant production
Billion ton carbon (Giga t)
LandLand
Land Oceans
 4-5% of the primary production on
land is directly consumed by humans
Courtesy of Yngvar Olsen

19. Anchovy
The food chain in fisheries and agriculture
 4-5% of the primary
production (TL 1) on land is
directly consumed by
humans
 Domesticated animals for
food are herbivores (TL 2)
 Humans (TL 2.21) feed 2
trophic levels higher in the
oceans than on land
 Very inefficient utilization of
the primary productivity
.
1st trophic level
4th
3rd
5th
2nd
niveau
Food chain fisheriesFood chain agriculture
Eaters of
wolf-eaters
Wolf-eaters
Corn/rice
Vegetables
Fruit
(80% of human diet)
After Duarte et al 2009
Algae
Kelp
Phyto-
plankton
zooplankton
Clams
Salmon
Herring
Tuna
sheep cow
Wolverine
Wolf

20. Hilborn et al. 2018

21. Fish are the biggest source of
harvestable protein we have
 Catching wild small fish species from both marine
and freshwater fisheries are the most energy and
cost-efficient human food production system and
have the least environmental impacts in terms of
greenhouse gases, water use, fertilizers,
insecticides or herbicides compared to any other
human food production systems

22. Freshwater pelagic small fish and
fisheries in major African lakes
and reservoirs in relation to food
security and nutrition
by
Jeppe Kolding
Professor
University of Bergen
Department of Biology
Bergen, Norway
Paul van Zwieten
Assistant professor
Wageningen University
Aquaculture and Fisheries Group
Wageningen, Netherlands
Felix Marttin
Fishery Resources Officer
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
Rome, Italy
Simon Funge-Smith
Senior fishery officer
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
Rome, Italy
and
Florence Poulain
Fisheries officer
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
Rome, Italy
In press

23. Freshwater catches in Africa increase linearly
Kolding et al (in press FAO)

24. Lake Victoria – East Africa:

25. Total catches, lake Victoria 1959-2014

26. Modesta Medard
The Mukene/Dagaa (Rastrineobola argentea)
fishery on Lake Victoria

27. The Tanganyika sprat

28. The Kariba kapenta

29. The Malawi usipa

30. Size distribution of African fish species
Kolding et al (in press FAO)
The majority of fish
species are small

31. Water body
L = Lake
R = reservoir
Surface area
(Km2)
Main pelagic species
P/B
ratio
Pelagic yield (kg/ha) in 1980s
(A)
predicted (P)
Type of fishery
Present
yield
(kg/ha)
% increase
Victoria (L) 68800 Rastrineobola argentea 3.9 A = 23
Industrial
Artisanal
74 322
Tanganyika (L) 32900
Stolothrissa tanganicae
Limnothrisssa miodon
5 A = 22.5; P = 350
Industrial
Artisanal
34 151
Malawi (L) 30800 Engraulicypris sardella 3 A = slight; P = 30-40 Artisanal 16 1600
Turkana (L) ≈7000 Brycinus minutus Brycinus ferox 5.2 A = nil; P = 450 NA Nil
Mweru (L)
5120 Microthrissa moeruensis
5 A = 9; P = 130 -185 Artisanal 98 1100
Kivu (Rwanda) (L) 1055 Limnothrisssa miodon 6 A = slight; P = 40
Industrial
Artisanal
150 ≈1300
Kariba (R ) 5365 Limnothrisssa miodon 6 A = 22; P = 90 Industrial 56 255
Cahora Bassa (R ) 2665 Limnothrisssa miodon 5 A = nil; P = 30 Industrial 60 6000
Itezhi-tezhi (R ) 370
Brycinus lateralis Limnothrissa
miodon
5 A = 27; P = 95 Artisanal ? -
Kainji (R ) 1270
Pellonula leonensis Sierrathrissa
leonensis
? A = small; P = 60-80 Artisanal 109 ≈1000
Volta (R ) 8482
same as Kainji plus Odaxothrissa
mento
?
A = moderate;
P = 79
Industrial
Artisanal
120 ≈1000
Average 4.9 80
Kolding et al (in press FAO)

32. Only 2 biological questions in fisheries management
 How much?
 = Fishing pressure
• (effort f)
 How?
 = Fishing pattern
• (catchability q)
• (selectivity s)

33. Global management objectives: How much and how
UNCLOS 1982; Johannesburg 2002 Declaration § 31 (a):
«Stocks should be kept at biomass levels that can
produce maximum sustainable yields (MSY).»
CBD Malawi principles for Ecosystem Approach:
«A key feature of the ecosystem approach
includes conservation of ecosystem structure and
functioning»

34. The aquatic food web is size structured…
..abundance is inversely correlated with size
Primary producers
Primary consumers
Secondary consumers
Tertiary consumers
Top predators
LogBiomass
Size

35. LogBiomass
Size
Community size spectrum
The distribution of biomass by body size
follows regular patterns
phytoplankton
zooplankton
Small fish
Large fish
Under conventional selective fishing slope and
intercept will change

36. The ECOPATH trophic model
Flow diagram of the central South China Sea pelagic ecosystem in the 1980s. Arrows
indicate flow (t km-2y-1) and boxes (≈ log10 of B) the size of biomass (t km-2).
Walters et al. (1997)

37. 150 Ecopath models ≈ 40% of oceans
Christensen et al. 2014

38. Global ocean production
Kolding et al. 2015
Global mean exploitation rate vs trophic level
Our highly selective fishing pattern is very unbalanced and very
inefficient in terms of healthy food
1 kg
1000 kg
Human TL

39. Anchoveta

40. LogBiomass
Size
Balanced harvesting… (Garcia et al 2012)
.. is fishing as many sizes and species as possible in
proportion to natural productivity
It will maintain community
structure while returning
highest yields

41. ..and it will reconcile our global objectives?
UNCLOS 1982; Johannesburg 2002 Declaration § 31 (a):
«Stocks should be kept at biomass levels that can
produce maximum sustainable yields (MSY).»
CBD Malawi principles for Ecosystem Approach:
«A key feature of the ecosystem approach
includes conservation of ecosystem structure and
functioning»

42. How to measure the balance?
Distance from 1:1 line gives fishing pressure
Slope gives fishing pattern (ideal slope = 1)
Annual catch = fraction of annual production.
Under Balanced harvest the fraction should be
constant across all components in the ecosystem
Kolding et al. 2015
C = P

43. Global fishing pattern (150 ecosystems)
Low trophic
level forage fish
High trophic
level carnivores
Kolding et al. 2015

44. Temperate fisheries (ICES, North Pacific)
Slope not
significantly
different from 0!
Kolding et al. 2015

45. 13 Ecopath
models of
African lakes

46. Production vs Exploitation in 13
African lakes
Kolding et al (in press FAO)

47. Targeted
species

48. 10 June 2016 – Lake Victoria fishery closed for 2 months due to overfishing
and rampant use of illegal gears

49. May 4th 2017
UPDF (Uganda People’s Defence Force):
“Those found buying or eating
immature fish will be
prosecuted the same way as
those dealing with immature
fish”
“Maj. Ronald Kakurungu said
his team was determined to
wipe out illegal fishing methods
on the lake”

50. Catch and Production in Lake Victoria - 2015
These 3 groups
(species)
produce 11 mill
tonnes per year
10%
5%
4%
Sustainable
capture is some
4 millon tonnes
per year

51. To catch small fish you need fine mesh

52. Bangweulu swamps Northern Zambia

53. Carl Huchzermeyer

54. Bangweulu swamps Northern Zambia
Mesh size Mesh size
(mm) gillnets kusikila seines weir traps cum %
3 3,869 13
4 8,358 41
6 2,322 49
8 387 50
10
25 534 17 53 52
38 6,719 68 178 75
50 4,233 135 49 90
63 1,260 643 97
76 554 74 99
89 136 - 99
102 - -
114 -
127 255 100
140 -
Total: 13,691 937 280 14,936 29,844
% 46 3 1 50 100
% legal 22
Total number of gear by type
Ndang
a

55. Species and size composition by gear

56. Fishing pressure versus size
Large fish
in gillnets
Seines
Ciclids
Small fish
illegal
legal
Only largest species in legal gillnets
are overexploited
Overfished
Kolding et al. 2003

57. by
Jeppe Kolding
Professor
University of Bergen
Department of Biology
Bergen, Norway
Paul van Zwieten
Assistant professor
Wageningen University
Aquaculture and Fisheries Group
Wageningen, Netherlands
Felix Marttin
Fishery Resources Officer
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
Rome, Italy
and
Florence Poulain
Fisheries officer
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department
Rome, Italy

58. African drylands
Covers 55% of the
continent and
contains 48% of the
populations
Logone
floodplain

59. Lake Chad
Courtesy of Phang 2016
Landsat
Dry season
Lake Maga
Chari
River
Logone
River
Logone
Floodplain
Cameroon Chad
Landsat
Wet season
Google

60. ‘Caneaux de peche’ (Fishing canals)
Dry season

61. ‘Caneaux de peche’ (Fishing canals)
Courtesy of Phang 2016

62. Spatial distribution
of canals
Courtesy of Phang 2016

63. ‘Caneaux de peche’
MORSL
Courtesy of Phang 2016
Wet season

64. Courtesy of Phang 2016

65. Courtesy of Phang 2016

66. SmallFishFood = From catch to plate
Fishing Processing Transport Trade Plate
Catching small fish =
Improved ecosystems
Eating small fish =
Improved human health
We will follow the micro-nutrients along the whole value chain

68. Thank you for your attention
Photo by Modesta Medard