February 14, 2020
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Alarmingly, very few large and commercially valuable fish were seen on the reefs in Tonga during a scientific survey conducted by the Global Reef Expedition, which released its online report on 30 January 2020.“Tonga’s coral reef fish communities are dominated by small fish, considered low on the food chain, raising concern for the long-term sustainability of the fishery,” reports author Renee Carlton, a Marine Ecologist for the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation. Evidence of overfishing was apparent. “We saw very few fish that are particularly important to local fishers, such as parrotfish, emperors, snappers, and groupers.
