Fish |
Fisheries stock in
West Africa has been on the decline since the 80s. The region is said to
be losing $1.3billion annually to illegal fishing.
Despite the
decline,there are over 462 Chinese vessels doing both legal and illegal
fishing business on Nigeria's waterways. Joke Falaju (in Abuja) writes
on the need for African countries to join hands in curbing this menace.
Illegal fishing on
the West African coast has not only depleted the revenue generation from
the sector but has also exhausted the number of fishes in the ocean and
left many fishermen jobless. Nowadays fishermen in many coastal
communities are going to the sea to catch fish but returning without
any.
A recent report by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed that
Nigeria loses $60million annually to illegal fishing. This is in
addition to $1.3billion worth of fish the West African region lose to
illegal trade. The livelihoods and nutrition of millions of people in
Africa are being put at risk by foreign fishing fleets in the waters.
Rising global
demand for fish has made African waters a magnet for fleets from around
the world. European trawlers remain the primary foreign presence, but
fleets from China, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea and Taiwan have
also expanded in recent years. Foreign commercial trawlers are poaching
fish from African coastal waters and leaving small fisherman without
enough to catch.
Reports by
Fisheries Transparency Initiative disclosed that Chinese Vessels has
expanded from 13 vessels in 1985 to 462 vessels presently.
The Illegal,
Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is easy and highly lucrative
due to lack of monitoring and enforcement, especially in West Africa.
These pirates target places called Inshore Exclusive Zones (IEZ) which
were created to protect shallow coastal waters where fishes come to
reproduce.
They target high value species while generating a huge amount
of unwanted by-catch, which is then tossed into the oceans.
Coastal communities
across West Arica are reporting a dramatic decline in the amount of
fishes caught. As a result they spend longer time at sea for fewer or
smaller fish; this is because the rate of harvest far outstrips that of
replenishment.
In 2014, the
Nigerian Navy announced that it has arrested 22 Chinese nationals for
fishing in its territorial waters without permits and passports. Four
vessels were said not to have immigration documents and 22 crew members
on the vessels do not have international passports.
Investigations by
The Guardian revealed that the former Minister of Agriculture, Dr
Akiwunmi Adesina did all it could to ensure that Chinese nationals were
sanctioned and their vessels seized, unfortunately the menace of
corruption that has bedevilled every Nigerian sector would not allow
that to happen, it was later gathered that the vessels was released
without much ado.
Some Chinese
companies were alleged fishing on prohibited grounds or under-declared
their catches. It was gathered that boats either turned off their
identification systems or transmitted false location data. The absence
of efficient fisheries management in some West Africa States, including
Nigeria has allowed rogue companies to plunder marine resources; they
are taking advantage of weak enforcement from African governments and
Chinese authorities to the detriment of local fisherman and the
environment.
Stakeholders have
canvassed need for the Chinese government to control rogue fishermen,
because if unchecked such practices could jeopardize its mutually
beneficial partnership in West Africa.
The Nigerian marine
waters are plagued with almost daily attacks by armed robbers on our
shrimp trawling vessels, leading to killings and maiming of crew
members, abduction of key officers and demand for huge ransom for their
release, seizure of vessels for days leading to loss of fishing days,
and the removal of fishing/communication equipment and catches.
A total of 271
reported cases of attacks on vessels operating in the Nigerian
Territorial Waters occurred between February 2009 and September, 2013.
The socio-economic impact is huge, as it has led to a drastic reduction
in the number of fishing fleet from about 230 vessels to only 119
vessels, with only ten companies in operation in recent years.
The African Union
has however expressed worry at the continued decline of fish stocks on
the African continent, following the decrease in the fish catch by
artisanal and industrial fishermen. The Senior Specialist African Union
Inter African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), Mohammed Seesay
stated this during a fisheries communication Workshop on harnessing the
power of media to raise awareness on the issues of the Fisheries sector
in Africa.
Pointing out that
the global fish stock has being on the decline since 1980, and if care
is not taken, the world may not be able to meet up with the global
demand of 50million metric tonne by 2025. He hinged the depleting fish
stock on the continued illegal fishing activities, over exploitation of
the fishing stock, weak monitoring, control and governance, violating
fishing regulations, endemic corruption in fisheries governance, harmful
subsidies, low professionalism among others.
Meanwhile the World
Bank had estimated that improved fisheries governance and resource
management could generate at least an addition $2-4billion annually and
the additional multiplier effects and impact on employment could be
brought through value chain development.
The AU
representative further lamented that 70 percent of fisheries stocks on
the continent are fully exploited or over exploited; disclosing that
globally over $100billion is lost annually to poor fisheries governance
and management. He stressed the need to avoid overexploitation, which
often decreases productivity and socio-economic benefits. Disclosing
that about 1.6billion mt of fish is needed to meet the demand gap in
2016.
"If government is
aware of the increasing potential resources available in the fisheries
sector they would increase focus on the fisheries sector," he said.
Seesay further
noted that currently, fisheries and aquaculture directly contribute
$24billion to the African economy, representing 1.3 percent of the total
African GDP, adding that an increase in GDP could be achieved by
augmenting fishing activities. He noted that sustainable aquaculture and
improved fisheries management and governance could make the sector
become highly profitable economic enterprise, able to support the
economic and social development of Africa.
He said "with
rising global demand for seafood, the potential profits in this sector
will be high over the next few decades, and aquaculture will play an
important role in meeting the escalating global and regional demand and
this clearly opens a wide window.
He stated that a
sustainable and inclusive development of the fisheries sector requires
good governance, transparency and accountability in the form of reliable
contracts and access allocation. He said such effort would help support
shared prosperity by avoiding rent seeking, transfer-pricing practices,
corruption and illegal fishing.
Seesay pointed out
that with the situation in the fishing sector in Africa, the fisheries
sector would continue to generate low profits or loss. However he
posited that another future is possible for the sector, wherein
developing countries and regional leadership can experience real growth
and job creation through greater fish resources management.
Concerted
international action to protect Africa's fisheries is urgent because the
stakes are high. Illegal fishing is putting the livelihoods and
nutrition of millions of people on the continent at risk. Ultimately,
this carries serious consequences for the rest of the world too, in
terms of a sustainable supply of fish and protection against climate
change.
Governments can
also improve controls in ports where the fish catch is landed and
reported. As Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, who chairs the
Africa Progress Panel, has said: "Commercial trawlers that operate
under flags of convenience, and unload in ports that do not record their
catch, are engaging in organised theft disguised as commerce."
Illegal fishing is a
form of theft that has major costs for the global community Norway for
instance has established illegal fishing as a "transnational crime".
This could bring it under the remit of Interpol, with police, customs
agencies and justice ministries playing a more active role in
enforcement.
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