Illegal fishing costing Africa billions

By Julio Godoy | Last updated: Apr 19, 2010 - 11:46:40 PM

Harold Muhammad/MGN Online

BERLIN (IPS/GIN) - Rampant illegal fishing is decimating fish populations for some of the poorest West African countries, with the practice most rife in the east central Atlantic Ocean area, which covers the territorial waters of some 15 African countries from Morocco and Mauritania in the north to Angola in the south.

Most affected are Guinea and Sierra Leone while the majority of ships and companies involved in the illegal fishing navigate under flags from China, Russia, Indonesia, and Panama but also from the European Union and other industrialized countries, such as Portugal, Italy and Japan.

Illegal fishing occurs mostly in the eastern central Atlantic region and has increased over the last 10 years, according to the European Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, an EU body set up to assist African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with information on development.

In general, the total current losses caused by illegal fishing worldwide are estimated at between $9 billion and $24 billion per year. Most estimates put illegal fishing catches at between 11 million and 26 million tons of fish, or between 10 and 22 percent of the total fisheries production.

These estimates do not take into account the environmental damage caused by overfishing which has decimated numerous fish species, from tuna to cod fish.

Developing countries are the most at risk from illegal fishing, “with total estimated (illegal) catches in West Africa being 40 percent higher than reported catches,” according to the London-based consulting firm MRAG, which describes itself as “promoting sustainable utilization of natural resources through integrated management policies and practices.”

Illegal fishing has been defined as the fishery conducted by national or foreign vessels in waters under the jurisdiction of a sovereign state without the permission of that state's authorities or in contravention of its laws and regulations.

National jurisdictional waters, known as exclusive economic zones, consist of a sea area over which a state has special exploration and exploitation rights.

Illegal fishing can also be conducted by vessels flying the flag of states which have ratified international fishery agreements, but which operate in contravention of the conservation and management measures adopted in such agreements.

In yet another report, the British department for international development estimated in 2009 that the annual loss due to illegal fishing alone near Guinea is valued at $110 million.

The London-based Environmental Justice Foundation calls this illegal fishing in the Guinean territorial waters “the worst in Africa,” which means it is the worst in the world.

The British department for international development report estimated that Guinea loses in excess of 34,000 tons of fish every year to illegal fishing, including around 10,000 tons of “bycatch.” Bycatch is the euphemism for the unwanted portion of the catch thrown overboard by fishers.

Officially, Guinean fishers legally catch some 54,000 tons per year. This means that the illegal fishing represents two-thirds of the country's legal recorded catches.

Saskia Richartz, EU oceans policy director for the environmental organization Greenpeace, told IPS that “these dimensions of illegal fishing should be the most surprising and embarrassing for industrialized countries, since their leaders have over the past 10 years repeatedly pledged to eliminate it by 2004.”

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 world leaders agreed to urgently implement national and regional plans of action to effect the Food and Agriculture Organization's international plan of action “to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by 2004.”

Ms. Richartz said that the economic losses caused by illegal fishing for sub-Saharan African countries “amount to at least $1 billion per year” but international law enforcement against illegal fishing is “non-existent.”

“It is easy to launder illegal fishing catches and avoid sanctions because port controls are weak and inconsistent,” Ms. Richartz added.

Ms. Richartz also accused EU members of only paying lip service to the fight against illegal fishing: “Greenpeace has repeatedly observed and documented fishing vessels, nationals and companies from the EU and other developed and developing nations, flouting international agreements where they exist, and fishing with impunity where they do not.”

While other blacklists only include vessels and companies from China, Russia, Panama, Tunisia, Indonesia and the like but none from Western Europe and other industrialized nations, Greenpeace's annual list cites ships from Portugal, Italy and Japan.

In a number of European fisheries, illegal fishing is thought to account for one-third to one-half of all catches, Heike Baumueller, environment and resource governance researcher at Chatham House, an independent think tank in London, told IPS.

“That will represent over $15 billion of lost catches and over 27,000 lost jobs in fishing and processing industries by 2020,” Ms. Baumueller told IPS.

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