Review on Fisheries Resources and the Effect of Marine Pollution in Coastal Waters of Pakistan

Abstract

The people who reside in the Balochistan and Sindh Provinces rely on the abundant fish and shellfish resources in Pakistan's coastal waters for food and a living. The fish populations in the two marine provinces are at different levels because of their very different topographies. Fisheries make a minimal contribution to the national GDP (0.32%), and their contribution to Pakistan's agricultural GDP is 1.4%, whereas 0.01% of employment is derived from fisheries. Fish production reached 800,000 metric tonnes in 2022, with varying production from marine waters. Just 25% of the country's total fishery production was exported, with 496 million US dollars. The stagnant trend in fish production, especially in Sindh province, indicates that fish stocks are being overfished. The Government of Pakistan's Marine Fisheries Department and the FAO worked together from 2009 to 2015 to conduct a number of fish stock assessment surveys. The final evaluation report states that large fishing fleets and current fishing practices amount to "fishing for catastrophe," with the principal fish populations in Pakistani seas being overfished and decimated by 60-90 percent. Prominent ecological changes include the decrease of large-bodied, slowly growing, highly valuable predatory species; an increase in short-lived, fast-growing, small-sized species with low commercial value; a wide variety of cephalopods, mainly squids and cuttlefish (an opportunistic, fast-growing group); and an abundance of jellyfish, which further disrupts resources severely. The fishing fleet's overcapacity, harmful fishing gear, inadequate storage on fishing vessels, lack of cool chain maintenance, inadequate landing place infrastructure, and destruction of mangroves are some of the major problems facing marine fisheries. Along the Karachi shore, the primary effects of pollution are habitat loss, eutrophication in some areas due to deteriorating water quality, hazardousness to aquatic life, particularly to the commercial species’ larval stages, suffocation of intertidal marine vegetation and animals, sub-lethal effects on development and reproduction, red tides, pathogen-contaminated fish and shellfish, and the bioaccumulation of hazardous substances, especially heavy metals. Ultimately, these factors lead to the nearshore ecosystem depleting its marine life resources.