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

Year of publication 1987

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

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

Product type Project

Series title CECAF/ECAF Series

Series number 1014-9228

Edition 1

Synopsis (short abstract) Cameroon is located on the west coast of the wet forested Equatorial Africa. The hydrographic regime of Cameroonian waters is characterized by the relatively stable thermocline, steep temperature gradient and stable oceanographic conditions below the mixed layer throughout the year. The Eastern Tropical Zone (ETZ) of the Gulf of Guinea from Cotonou (Benin) to Cape Lopez (Gabon) is not affected by seasonal upwelling. But even in this sector, the surface water temperatur es are known to fluctuate between 25°C and 30°C. Seasonal changes are due to the effect of the monsoonal wet surface water salinities. The multiple-stock fisheries are exploited by artisanal fishing units and industrial fleets (finfish trawlers and shrimpers). Both dugout and planked canoes of variable sizes are used by the artisanal fishery to operate a number of fishing gears: e.g., (a) drift net (waka-waka); (b) artisanal purse seine (watsha); (c) beach-seines (draw ing chain); (d) cast net (mbunja); (e) conical shrimp nets (ngoto); (f) multifilament bottom-set gillnets (musobo net); and (g) hook and line. The available data are not adequate to enable the use of conventional stock assessment techniques in assessing the yield potential of exploited species on the Cameroonian continental shelf, estuaries and creeks but preliminary estimates of potential yield made in the sixties indicated that the magnitudes were modest, and lower t han the present combined annual catches of the industrial fleet (12 000–20 000 t) and the artisanal annual catches which amount to more than 20 000 t. (...)

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

Language English

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