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African Fisheries Conference opens in The Gambia

24 September 2010, The Scottish White Fish Producers' Association
URL: http://www.fishnewseu.com/latest-news/world/4299-african-fisheries-conference-opens-in-the-gambia.html

DR BABAGANA Ahmadu, Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representative to The Gambia opened the Conference of African Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture (CAMFA) meeting by saying that declining fish supplies are threatening the livelihoods of millions in Africa.

He pointed to an increase in illegal marine fisheries by foreign ships and increasing demand making the crisis even worse.

He called on the need for responsible stewardship to protect and conserve the continent’s aquatic resources for present and future generations.

“The challenges to achieving sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture are global and need to be addressed through coordinated action,” said Dr Ahmadu.

The African fisheries sector has the potential to contribute about six percent of the continent’s annual economic growth however, its it has a low adaptive capacity to deal with this challenge because of shortages of information, technology, skills, economic resources and threat by climate change among others.

Dr Ahmadu added that FAO developed a number of initiatives to promote responsible fisheries management to help member countries tackle problems of over exploitation, overcapacity, illegal fishing and inadequate management.

One of the key initiative is the FAO Code of Conduct for responsible Fisheries and regional initiatives such as the Sub-regional Fisheries commission, to the Committee for Eastern and Central Atlantic Fisheries (CECAF), to the fisheries research programme linked to the Norwegian research vessel, the Nansen and through partnerships with related initiatives to address the challenges that face sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in Africa.

Meanwhile, Tim Bostock, Department for International Development DFID) Fisheries Advisor acknowledged key facts about African fish and fisheries such as the fact that 200 million Africans eat fish and that in many parts of Africa, fish may be the only protein-based food.

Other facts were that African international trade in fish products was estimated to amount to $4.3 billion which was 8 percent of the global trade.

“This vast loss of wealth is shared, probably disproportionately, by African economies. Africa may be losing the potential to harvest some $2 to 5billion of economic return every year as direct outcome of mismanagement,” said Bostock.

Despite being one of Africa’s most valuable renewable natural assets, and in spite of the threats to their integrity, it seems strange that fisheries consistently fail to capture the serious attention of many donors and national governments.

He said there was need for urgent attention needed to ensure that both benefits were sustained or enhanced and threats were being mitigated.

“Without doubt, better fisheries governance and management, combined with effective monitoring, improved market access and trade, must play an integral role in this. Not only are African economies and regional food supplies the potential beneficiaries, but also the growing number of international markets where purchasing decisions are increasingly determined on the legitimacy and sustainability of supply chains,” said Bostock.

He said the failure of fisheries to generate wealth and contribute sustainably to national growth was far from being just an African problem.

There was need to realize that the fisheries were an economic activity which, should be enabled to flourish, to be profitable and to be sustainable.