Liberia is situated in the southwestern sector of the great bulge of West Africa. It lies between 4°34'N and 6°56'N, and 7°32'W and 9°26'W. It is bordered to the north by Sierra Leone, and to the east by the Republic of Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire. The Liberian coast extends about 590 km (370 mi) in a northwest direction from Cape Palmas on the border with Côte d'Ivoire to Robertsport on the border with Sierra Leone. Liberia has a territorial sea of about 200 miles. The continental shelf is 16–56 km (10–35 mi) wide and the extended economic zone (EEZ) is about 18 400 km2. The Liberian coast is generally low, flat and sandy; with few bays, many coastal inlets and small lagoons (in the Cape Palmas area, the coast is higher and a lot more rocky).
Liberian waters lie between two major upwelling areas of West Africa. One area is associated with the Canary Current to the northwest and the other is associated with the Benguela Current to the east. ATLANTNIRO (1981) reports that the width of the continental shelf is generally limited by the 100 m isobath. The shelf is generally wider off Central Liberia and narrower at Cape Palmas and off Robertsport. In the northwest the slope starts at 300 m whereas it starts at 100–120 m in the southeast and beyond this depth the sea floor has canyons and rocky outbreaks which limit trawling. The coastal sector between Timbo and Blo, where the shelf has a gentle slope to a depth of about 800 m, is ideal for trawling.
The inshore multispecies fisheries are exploited with a variety of gears (gillnets, cast-nets, beach-seines, trawls, purse-seines, ring nets, traps and hooks), operated from different artisanal and industrial fishing boats. The artisanal fishery has undergone less development than the industrial fishery. The total annual catch of the artisanal fishery is now about 2 000 t. The catch of the industrial fishery was 472 t in 1971. Since then, the catch increased steadily to 2 984 t in 1978. After 1980, the industrial finfish catch and the finfish imported by Liberian fishing companies has fluctuated between 4 500 t and 9 000 t. The industrial shrimp fishery expanded rapidly in the 1970s; the annual catch was 400 t in 1969 and 1 689 t in 1978. Shrimp activities have been very much reduced since 1980 as evidenced by low annual catches, 474 t in 1983 and 191 t in 1984.
With increased fishing activities in Liberian waters, it is vital to determine the magnitudes of available fishery resources and their potential yields compared to present levels of harvest in order to ascertain the long-lasting economic benefits that can accrue from various fishery development activities and management strategies. Hence, this study focuses on the magnitudes of the demersal and pelagic stocks, assesses the species composition of exploitable stocks, compares the productivity and catch rates of artisanal and industrial fisheries and also describes the interaction between various fisheries.
