Sir

The tsunami that hit south and southeast Asia, taking a horrific toll in human lives, also affected several coastal industries, including tourism, agriculture and shrimp farming, though to what extent is unclear. As noted in your News story “Scientists seek action to fix Asia's ravaged ecosystems” (Nature 433, 94; 2005 10.1038/433094b), the effects in some areas were exacerbated by existing environmental problems stemming from settlement and industry.

The governments of Thailand and Indonesia have announced some estimates of fishing boats lost and highlighted the need for investments to restart the fisheries. However good their intentions, I believe that Western aid agencies, and indeed, the governments of the region would be ill-advised to rebuild the fisheries as they were before the tsunami.

Apart from oceanic fisheries for tuna and other large fish, fisheries in the tsunami-affected region fall into two categories: ‘artisanal fisheries’, relying on small (5 m or less), owner- or family-operated craft, some unmotorized; and ‘industrial fisheries’, using larger vessels, mainly trawlers but also other specialized craft with salaried crews.

Jointly, their fishing activities have radically depleted the nearshore resources, down to depths of 100 m in places. Governments in the region have tried to encourage the industrial fisheries to operate farther offshore, but with little success, mainly because biological production, in tropical waters, is much higher inshore than offshore. Hence the artisanal and industrial fisheries essentially target the same shrimp and fish stocks, leading to intense competition.

This competition and the ensuing violence, including boat burnings and riots, can be serious enough to prompt governments to take action, such as the 1980 ban on bottom trawlers in western Indonesia. Usually, however, government policies ignore these conflicts. Sometimes they exacerbate conflict by subsidizing the construction and operation of industrial vessels, even in cases where these do not add to the total catch, but reduce that of the artisanal fishers.

International aid has often aggravated this through technological and capital transfers, or donations of surplus vessels. Meanwhile, failed agricultural and social policies aggravate the situation by driving thousands of landless farmers to coastlines, where they usually fail to emulate the more sustainable ways of ‘traditional’ fishers.

After the tsunami, the initial push will be to get people back to the jobs they know, and it will be hard to argue otherwise in the midst of the chaos. But rebuilding the fisheries without structural reform will only intensify these trends and conflicts.

The challenge is to rebuild fisheries while directing as much money and energy as possible to generating land-based job opportunities for young fishers. Emphasis should be given to basic education and technical skills: many fishers in south and southeast Asia are illiterate, and this limits their social mobility.

Amending the old adage that teaching people to fish is better than giving them a fish to eat, we should instead be teaching them to repair bikes, sewing machines and water pumps.