STATISTICAL NOTE 



Statistics prepared by international organizations and governments vary in their reliability from excellent 

 to poor and. in some instances, non-existent. Different reporting methods and time frames can produce 

 minor variations between different sources that complicate meaningful comparisons. Some countries collect 

 data on powered vessels only; some include non-powered fishing vessels in their statistics. Otlier nations 

 report only vessels over a certain tomiage while still others include only "decked" vessels (i.e., those with 

 a deck as opposed to open rowboats without a deck). Countries also change their reporting methods or 

 periodically update their data for previous years. The authors recognize that different numbers have 

 been, or can be, cited for the same country's fleet for the same year. This report attempts to overcome 

 tlie problem by using a single source (Lloyd's Register of Shipping) and supplementing the information with 

 other reliable sources as available. 



EMPHASIS ON HIGH-SEAS FLEET 



The autliors have decided for the purposes of this study to defnie high-seas fishing vessels as vessels 

 of 500-gross registered tons or more. The authors decided to use this definition for analytical simplicity. 

 Existing data sets, such as diose provided by Lloyd's, give worldwide fleet statistics based on the size, but 

 not the deployment of vessels. Tlie authors have had to rely on such data sets because compiling 

 comprehensive world-wide statistics from national statistical reports was beyond the resources available for 

 this study. The authors recognize, however, that small coastal vessels can be shifted from one country to 

 another. Many countries deploy vessels smaller than 500-GRT on the high-seas. The authors, for example, 

 were faced with the problem of not using statistics which identified high-seas vessels in the 100- to 499-GRT 

 range, because these vessels were below the 500-GRT cutoff point. Alternadvely, some countries deploy 

 vessels larger than 500-GRT in coastal fisheries. Tlie authors believe that focusing on vessels of 500-GRT 

 or more, from one respected source, provided an excellent picture of basic trends. 



We have used the term "high-seas vessel" to identify vessels over 500-GRT that fish beyond 200-mile 

 Exclusive Economic Zones. As indicated above, there are many vessels in the 100-GRT to 499-GRT class 

 that fish on the high-seas or that fish thousands of miles from their honieports. In many cases we used the 

 term "distant-water" to identify fishing grounds far from honieports of various countries. There are a few 

 instances where the terms may overlap: vessels under 500-GRT fishing far beyond 200-miles and vessels 

 over 2,000-GRT fishing close to shore. The authors have attempted to differentiate between "high-seas" and 

 "distant-water" fisheries as much as possible, but there were a few cases where the authors simply did not 

 have sufficient information about certain vessels or fisheries. 



