In one fishing village in Krabi, we observed an interesting characteristic about fishers, not seen in other places. There were some fisher-women who were well regarded for their very good fishing skills. One woman worked alone on a small boat using fish gill nets and always returned with reasonable catches of big and small fish. Another fisher-woman was an old lady of 70 years who was renowned for her ability to catch shellfish using a small net. Other fishers in this village used shrimp gill nets, which also caught fish, crab, and squid. This species diversification of catches and the specialization of some fishers may be one of the reasons that helps maintain fisheries abundance.
Catches from this small-scale fishery were also quite small. Each fisher generally gets less than 1 kg of shrimp and another 1 kg of other species each day. Here, their practice of the sufficiency concept was again revealed. They all indicated that this amount was sufficient for them because they were able to sell their catches at reasonable prices, leaving them with no desire to fish more. The fisheries in this village exhibited small-scale fishing practices that seemed highly sustainable.
Not all small-scale fisheries are sustainable, however. The most contested fishing gears employed by small-scale fishers, especially in Chanthaburi province, are set bag nets for shrimp fisheries, which have been used for at least 50 years. Shrimp bag net is a stationary gear which could cause minor harm to life at the seafloor, as the bottom of the net needs to be closed and dragged when retrieved. The gear is also highly unselective, especially when used with very small mesh size. It is usually positioned in the channel to capture shrimps that drift with the high tides. Lots of juvenile shrimps and immature fish often end up in the net and are used to feed groupers and snappers reared in cages. The Department of Fisheries recognizes the destructive nature of this gear, but it is not able to impose a total ban on the gear, as fishers claim traditional use of it. The only thing that the government can do at this time is to control the number of bags from increasing. Similar concern applies to the use of wooden stake traps in Ranong province, also because this practice often involves the cutting of mangroves to use as stakes and to build traps.