Crab fishing vital in PNG, according to NFA

CRAB fishing is a small scale industry but an increasingly important fishery in Papua New Guinea in terms of addressing nutritional needs and incomes for communities, according to the National Fisheries Authority (NFA).
NFA officers visited the mud crab farming and fattening site at Biotou and Kivori – Poe villages in the Kairuku local level government in Central last weekend to ensure the farm was in line with their mud crab management plan as well as providing technical support to farmers.
NFA acting managing director Johnson Dotson said the purpose of the visit was to ascertain the type of technology and methods used to set up the mud crab fattening cages and fences in the two villages and to find out more on the communities vision to venture into commercial mud crab fattening activities.
“Crab fishery is small scale but an increasingly important fishery in Papua New Guinea in terms of addressing nutritional needs and incomes for communities that
depend on the fishery,” he said.
“Therefore, it is the intention of the National Fisheries Authority to work with communities and provincial administrations to establish effective management regimes to realise the maximum socio-economic potential of this fishery.
“At present, the mud crab is an important subsistence fishery to coastal communities along the estuarine mangrove habitats, not only along the Central coastline, but elsewhere in the country.
“Biotou’s mud crabs fattening project is a model farm that teaches local farmers how to fatten harvestable-sized mud crabs to a required weight suitable for local and international marketing.
“The motivation behind mud crab fattening initiative in the two villages were to create an important income earning opportunity for the villagers in addition to improving the nutritional status of the villagers as initiated by The Leprosy Mission.”