1. Overview of study area
Thandwe Township is a major fishing base in southern Rakhine State. During the socialist period, the township was the landing base for the state-owned Fishery Enterprises, but when liberalization of the fishing industry began in the 1990s, both inshore and off-shore fisheries saw remarkable growth. The main actors of inshore fisheries are the small-scale fishermen in the coastal area (Okamoto 2008b). The shrimp fishing boom opened up the way for development and anchovy purse seine fishing became popular in the early 2000s.