Ocean & Coastal Management 98 (2014) 130—139 ELSEVIER Contents lists available at SclenceDlrect Ocean & Coastal Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman Ocean ¿V Coastal Management Propulsion-gear-based characterisation of artisanal fisheries in the Malindi-Ungwana Bay, Kenya and its use for fisheries management Cosmas N. Munga a’b’c’ *, Johnstone O. Omukoto a, Edward N. Kimani a, Ann Vanreusel b 1 Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, P.O. Box 81651, 80100 Mombasa, Kenya b Gent University, Marine Biology Research Group, Krijgslaan 281— S8, 9000 Gent, Belgium c Technical University of Mombasa, P.O. Box 90420, 80100 Mombasa, Kenya A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Available online Keywords: Artisanal fishery Catch composition Catch-per-unit-effort Trophic level Vessel-gear category Malindi-Ungwana Bay Kenya In Kenya, like other tropical countries, coastal artisanal fishery is multispecies, multigear and multifleet in nature with many management challenges. The Malindi-Ungwana Bay in particular, supports both the artisanal fishery and the semi-industrial bottom trawl shrimp fishery presenting a management chal lenge. Recent stock assessment surveys have identified catch composition of the semi-industrial bottom trawl fishery in the bay but artisanal catches remain barely described. This study describes, the artisanal fish catch composition (total number of species caught, sizes and trophic levels), and catch-per-unit- effort (CPUE) for each of the most popular propulsion-gear categories used in the bay. We make a case that the use of specific propulsion-gear categories can be dynamically managed to encourage the re covery of selected fish groups and thus support fisheries management. A total of 4 269 finfish belonging to 177 species and 66 families were sampled by the 5 most popular propulsion-gear categories between 2009 and 2011. The total number of species caught was highest for canoe-gillnet, mas/itia-gillnet and foot-seine net, and lowest for foot-handline and mas/itia-handline. Significant differences in catch composition existed between the different propulsion-gear categories. The CPUE was not significantly different between propulsion-gear, although this was on the average highest for canoe-gillnet and mas/itia-gillnet, and lowest for the foot-handline. The highest trophic level of 4.0 was recorded for mas/itia-gillnet and the lowest 3.4 and 3.2 for canoe-gillnet and foot-seine net respectively. The use of specific combinations of propulsion-gear categories, give an alternative approach in management recommendation of the coastal artisanal fisheries in the tropics, from the traditional gear-based man agement initiative. This study, singled out the mas/itia-gillnet, canoe-gillnet and foot-seine net as suitable units for monitoring the artisanal fisheries in Malindi-Ungwana Bay since mas/itia-gillnet lands the highest mean trophic level and largest sized individuals, and canoe-gillnet and foot-seine net land the highest number of species caught and smallest sized individuals. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Sustainable management of coastal artisanal or small-scale fisheries in the tropics is challenging due to the multigear, multi species and multifleet (propulsion) nature and the lack of adequate resources to conduct scientific studies, monitoring and enforce ment (McClanahan and Mangi, 2004). Catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) and species composition of catches are used to guide management but are difficult to establish due to the lack of long term and ac curate artisanal fisheries data (McClanahan and Mangi, 2004; * Corresponding author. Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, P.O. Box 81651, 80100 Mombasa, Kenya. Tel.: +254 735 979 383 (mobile); fax: +254 41 475157, +254 041 2495632. E-mail addresses: cosmasnke2001@yahoo.com, cmunga@kmfri.co.ke (C.N. Munga). http://dx.doi.Org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.06.006 0964-5691 /© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Marquez-Farias, 2005; Cinner et al., 2009; Kronen et al., 2012). Nevertheless there is a growing awareness that reliable knowledge on trends in catch composition and selectivity of commonly used gear is important for management recommendations (Gobert, 1994; McClanahan and Mangi, 2004). Therefore, artisanal fish eries has received increased attention from scientists and envi ronmental managers for various ecological and socio-economic reasons, including user conflicts, habitat destruction and stock depletions. Furthermore, the current climate change phenomenon is an additional challenge to the management of reef-based fish eries as reef habitats are getting destroyed under unprecedented pressure (Cinner et al., 2009). So far only a few studies in the tropics including Kenya, Madagascar and New Papua Guinea examined species selectivity by