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Crew member on deck of a Senegalese/Spanish fishing boat. (Copyright: Pierre Gleizes/Greenpeace)
Greenpeace warns on foreign vessel illegal fishing in West Africa
(SENEGAL, 5/9/2017)
Greenpeace’s monitoring fishing ship tour in West African water, together with local authorities, ended with 11 arrests of vessels fishing illegally as well as the detection of 13 fishing regulation breaches.
The NGO’s two month tour called ‘Hope in West Africa,’ included fisheries monitoring, civil society and political engagement in a total of six countries in the region.
These infractions included shark finning, incorrect net mesh sizes, transshipment at sea, lack of documentation and fishing outside of permits, which were committed by fishing vessels with Chinese, Italian, Korean, Comoros and Senegalese flags.
“After two months at sea documenting and inspecting industrial fishing vessels in the waters of West Africa, it is clear that illegal fishing is worryingly common. We also found an eagerness among local fishermen, civil society and governments across the region to address the situation and move towards a sustainable fisheries system,” pointed out Pavel Klinckhamers, Hope in West Africa project leader.
The results of Greenpeace’s ship tour, which ended this weekend in Dakar, have been compiled in a preliminary report, which includes the findings that are symptomatic of West African fisheries’ desperate need for effective regulations at a regional level.
As part of the tour, Greenpeace and inspectors from Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone and Senegal boarded and inspected 37 industrial fishing vessels in the region. In Mauritania the NGO conducted its own monitoring and presented the findings to the Minister of Fisheries, Nani Chrougha.
In this regard, the NGO stressed that without decision making powers current managing bodies for the seas, from Cabo Verde to Sierra Leone, including the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC) and the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF), can only perform insufficient advisory roles.
To Greenpeace, a lack of transparency on fisheries policies and practices also blights the region. Fisheries authorities’ vessel lists are often incomplete or inaccurate, and the numbers and details of joint venture companies and fisheries access agreements in the region remains opaque.
“With West African fish stocks already in freefall, governments must act right now to ensure food security is no longer threatened by overfishing and illegal fishing. Fish stocks are not restricted to national boundaries, and that is why the solutions to end the overfishing of West Africa’s waters can only come from joint efforts between the countries of this region, stressed Ahmed Diame, Greenpeace Africa Oceans campaigner.
In his opinion, governments must work together to set up and implement an effective regional fisheries management system to safeguard these precious resources now and for generations to come.
Greenpeace advises that an effective regional fisheries management body be established and national fisheries policies harmonised. Transparency, including bilateral fisheries agreements, the sharing of resources to optimise Vessel Monitoring Systems for tracking fishing vessels, and the setting up of a black list of IUU vessels and non-cooperating captains in the region must be adopted by all countries.
The NGO stresses that there is an urgent need to establish a committee to monitor stock assessment and catches to bring fisheries capacity in balance with available resources.
“The voices of local fishing communities, those hit hardest by industrial fishing in the region, must be made central to the planning and implementation of fisheries management. With West African fish stocks plummeting, the need for such a system is urgent,” Greenpeace warns.
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