Spanish mackerel as a coastal resource

Abstract

In most of coastal Papua New Guinea, the land is good and the people have not needed to develop the fishing skills of other Pacific Islanders. The handling and marketing problems caused by the hot climate and the distances between villages have also tended to limit the development of coastal fisheries. Recently, imported tinned fish has become very important in the national diet. As a result of this, more attention is being paid to developing the Papua New Guinea coastal fisheries to reduce the need for imports. This article is about one group of coastal fishes, the Spanish mackerel, and their possible role in future development.