SPC's Stock Assessment and Modelling team’s scientists have been working on a regional database recording stranded drifting fish aggregating devices (dFADs) in Pacific coastal areas. To date, 11 programmes have been set up in 11 Pacific countries and territories to record the stranding of these devices and their impact on the environment, particularly on coral reefs and fragile marine species, as well as the materials used, their design and the possibilities for reusing them.
French Polynesia launched a programme in 2019, led by the Département des Ressources Marines (DRM), with the same objectives, following the observation of large numbers of strandings events in the different archipelagos. The programmes are citizen-science based reports carried out by local communities. However, data can sometimes be incomplete, and this could affect data quality. To address this, data collection surveys have been used to quantify the number of strandings events and to gather information on both spatial and temporal aspects.
