Fishing history
Due to a lack of detailed reef fisheries data from Kotania Bay, fisheries information was reconstructed from interviews with the fishers who live and catch reef fish around the bay (Neis et al., 1999). Fishers from six villages were interviewed to determine current and historic catch records (species and yields) and the types of fishing gear and methods that were used. Fishers were selected for interview in order to draw on a wide range of age and experience in the fishery. It was assumed that the 48 interviewed fishers were a representative sample of the 153 fishers who catch (mainly reef) fish in Kotania Bay (Anon., 2012). Data was tabulated per decade to identify trends of the catch rates. While fisheries statistics for West Seram Bay was available from 1980 to 2012, similar data on the specific Kotania Bay area was only available from 2012 onward. We estimated relevant fisheries data for Kotania Bay in previous decades by extrapolating from the 2012 data.