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Marine Fishery Resources of Liberia: a review of exploited fish stocks

Year of publication 1987

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Author G.W. Ssentongo;Office of Assistant Director-General

Product type Project

Series title CECAF/ECAF Series

Series number 1014-9228

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Liberia is situated in the southwestern sector of the great bulge of West Africa. It lies between 4°34'N and 6°56'N, and 7°32'W and 9°26'W. It is bordered to the north by Sierra Leone, to the east by the Republic of Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire. The Liberian coast extends about 590 km (370 mi) in a northwest direction from Cape Palmas on the border with Côte d'Ivoire to Robertsport on the border with Sierra Leone. Liberia has an Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 miles. The conti nental shelf is from 16 to 56 km (10–35 mi) wide and the EEZ is about 18 400 km2. The hydrographic regime of Liberian waters is affected by a relatively stable shallow thermocline lying at mid-shelf. The average depth of the thermocline is between 20 and 35 m in most areas of West Africa, but in Liberia and elsewhere in the Bight of Biafra, the thermocline can be as shallow as 12–14 m. The inshore multiple stock fisheries are exploited with a variety of gears (gilln ets, cast-nets, beach-seines, trawls, purse-seines, ringnets, traps and hooks), operated from different artisanal and industrial fishing boats. The artisanal fishery has undergone less development than the industrial fishery. The total annual catch of the artisanal fishery is about 2 000 t, mostly consisting of coastal pelagic species. The total catch of the industrial fleet including imported finfish landed in Liberia ranges from 4 500 to 9 000 t. The total annual catch of shrimp landed in Liberia is now less than 500 t whereas the annual catch of tuna and tuna-like fish is 330–480 t. The results of the 1981 trawl survey undertaken by USSR using R/V BELOGORSK led to the following biomass estimates (in t) of demersal species (ATLANTNIRO, 1981): (...)

Statutory body / Meeting title Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF)

Language English

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