Setting a Baseline for Caribbean Fisheries

ABSTRACT

A review of archaeological and historical data on Caribbean fisheries shows that previous assumptions about overexploitation of fisheries in prehistoric and colonial times have not been demonstrated. Despite laudable efforts to set baselines for Caribbean fisheries, such attempts have failed, due to a lack of supporting archaeological data, various methodological failures, or incomplete analyses of historical data. These papers also ignored social and cultural factors, underscoring technological aspects that were basic constraints for the growth of fisheries or the overexploitation of different species. There is no evidence that aboriginal people or early Europeans: 1) extirpated the large, long-lived fishes; 2) caused habitat degradation with their level of fishing technology; 3) reduced the benthic predatory fishes favoring the small pelagic species; 4) created trophic cascades; or 5) reduced the predictability of exploited aquatic ecosystems. Due to their limited technological development, most of the mature breeding stocks of Caribbean fishes would have remained beyond the reach of aboriginal or early European fishers. The fisheries crises we now face is rooted in but does not belong to the past, and solutions rely on the present or in the future.

Key words:

• coral reef
• anthropogenic impacts
• prehistoric
• colonial
• artisanal fisheries

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper very much benefited from the input of archaeologists (Leach Foss, Scott Fitzpatrick), ecologists (Rick Aronson, Gaspar González), and fisheries experts (Ray Hilborn, John Munro and René Buesa), but any errors or insufficiencies that remain are mine alone. I also thank two anonymous reviewers and Jon Erlandson and Scott Fitzpatrick for carefully reading and providing comments on previous drafts of the paper.