Abstract:The tropical South China Sea has profound development potential for its wide sea area, excellent marine environment, high biodiversity, and abundant bio-resource species. Recently, under the background of coastal fishery resource degradation, it has become vital to speed up the protection and sustainable utilization of tropical island fishery resources in this area. Marine ranching is a new type of modern fishery, which combines habitat remediation, bio-resource restocking, leisure fishery, and landscape ecology. It can help to develop the marine economy together with effective protection of the ecological environment. The development of marine ranching in the wide, tropical South China Sea area has been slow. There are several advantages to carrying out marine ranching in the tropical South China Sea, such as in political, natural habitat, bio-resources, and industrial economy aspects, etc. Two appropriate marine ranching types were identified, including stock enhancement and tourism and leisure types. The progress of tropical coastal and offshore island marine ranching construction in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan provinces were reviewed, especially the first successful construction of island marine ranching around Wuzhizhou Island in Sanya and the first coral reef marine ranching at Lingyang reef in Sanshan. Several potential risks affecting tropical offshore island marine ranching development were also documented, such as extreme weather (typhoon), predators, poor basic living facilities on islands, long distance for transportation, application difficulty on the using right of the marine ranching construction area, expensive fees for use of the sea area, etc. Based on considerations above, we provide detailed suggestions, including scientifically selecting sites, optimizing artificial facility design, developing new anti-corrosion reef material, deployment protocols, and anti-wave mooring techniques. We also give suggestions for: development of predator prevention techniques (to increase the recapture rate of released animals); development of automatic operation, monitoring, and management systems; development of feasible investment and operation modes; and more policy support from the government.
