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Ghana grapples with illegal fishing as stocks dive
ACCRA, July 31, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Fish vendor Mercy Allotey waits at the
beachfront in Ghana’s capital Accra for customers to buy the freshest catch
brought in by the brightly-coloured dugout canoes plying the coast.
But she complains the local fishermen are now netting less and less as a
combination of illegal techniques and unscrupulous trawlers have devastated
stocks.
“It is spoiling our fishing,” she told AFP.
“Many times when they go they don’t get the fish.”
The fishing sector is crucially important to this West African nation.
It provides support for more than two million people, up to 10 percent of
the population, and the produce it generates accounts for about 60 percent of
the protein in the diet of Ghanaians.
But the figures are startling. United Nations data shows that production
fell from almost 420,000 tonnes in 1999 to 202,000 tonnes in 2014.
To blame are both the mainly Chinese-operated boats trawling offshore and
the damaging practices employed by artisanal fishermen as they scramble to
make up for losses.
Last month a report from Ghanaian NGO Hen Mpoano and the European
Environmental Justice Foundation said the trawlers cost the country’s economy
some $50 million a year.
In a practice known locally as “saiko”, they illegally target the staple
catch of local fishermen — including sardinella and mackerel — and sell it
to the communities on shore via middlemen.
The report estimated some 100,000 tonnes of fish were scooped out of the
water in this way in 2017, drastically reducing employment opportunities for
Ghanaians reliant on fishing.
– Fishing bans –
Ghana is looking to crack down on saiko as well as illegal practices
employed by local fishermen including using bright lights to attract fish,
poisoning them with chemicals or even tossing dynamite into the water.
In a bid to replenish stocks the government banned artisanal fishing for a
month from May to June and will forbid trawlers in August and September.
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But even those in charge admit a lot more needs to be done to rectify the
situation.
“The big challenge is a complete understanding of the system by
policymakers and everybody down the line down to the fisherman,” said
Emmanuel Kwafo, who is in charge of fisheries law enforcement at Ghana’s
navy.
He said there needed to be a more fundamental shift in Ghana from a
mindset where illegal methods are seen as permissible to make ends meet.
“When we do the right thing, we rather enhance our chances of survival,”
he said.
Kwafo was part of a major maritime conference held last week in Accra that
brought together naval chiefs from around West Africa and abroad to discuss
tackling issues including illegal fishing and the scourge of piracy in the
Gulf of Guinea.
Illegal fishing has a devastating cost on the region — the UN estimates
that nearly 40 percent of all fish caught in West Africa are done so
illegally, resulting in a loss of $2.3 billion.
– ‘Survival of Ghana’ –
Kamal-Deen Ali, director of the Accra-based Centre for Maritime Law and
Security Africa, does not hold back when talking about the need to fix the
fishing sector.
“Fisheries (are) linked to food security, the national security and the
survival of Ghana as a country,” he told AFP.
He insists the first scourge to focus on are the saiko trawlers.
But he said existing laws also need to be enforced for the local fishermen
— with politicians often pandering to their communities and turning a blind
eye to wrongdoing.
Few know the threats better than Nii Quaye, a former fisherman who now
works as a spokesman for the local trade in the Accra district of James Town.
Among his duties is checking the catches coming in to ensure they have not
been caught using chemicals or dynamite.
He said that fishermen had not seen an increase in stocks following the
artisanal suspension, and that success will come with law enforcement.
“When you arrest a person using chemicals or illegal fishing if they go to
jail maybe for three to six months, when they arrest five people I think
everything will be stopped,” he said.
But he fears that if nothing major is done, then in a few years there may
not be any fish left to catch.
“Everybody in James Town will be hungry because there is no fish,” he
said.
“We are begging, so (that) they stop it.”
BSS/AFP/HR/1020