Ghanaian artisanal fishing communities are already experiencing damages caused by climate change, including storm surges and floods. In the first week of April 2022, tidal waves created mayhem in some coastal communities in Ghana.
In low-lying areas, such as Volta (near the Togolese border) and Greater Accra Regions, villages were flooded by sea water. In Central and Western regions, where the altitude is high above sea level, and where there are rocky shores, tidal waves destroyed fishermen canoes, nets, engines.
Nana Kweigyah, Fisherman
Mr. Kweigyah is Chair of the Canoe and Fishing Gear Owners Association of Ghana (CaFGOAG). He is also member of the African Confederation of Artisanal Fisheries Organisations (CAOPA) youth cell. You can follow CaFGOAG’s advocacy work on their Twitter account.
Photo by Mamadou Aliou Diallo/CAOPA.
Since mid-2021, the authorities have started to build sea defense walls to protect the shorelines in communities most at risk across Ghana. But this will not suffice. Nana Kweigyah, President of the Canoe and Fishing Gear Owners Association of Ghana (CaFGOAG), explains that fishers are also taking initiatives to address climate change impacts: “We are working with Ghana meteorological agency to better understand the impacts of climate change on our fishers’ lives.” They are looking at how the waves and tides affect them “and establish operational early warning systems to save lives and properties in the event of tidal waves.” Kweigyah explains the plan is that marine forecasts and warnings will be shared in audio messages, translated in the local languages of the fishing regions, so to warn artisanal fishers before they decide to go to sea.
But climate change is not the only woe that Ghana artisanal fishing communities have to endure. They are also facing the impacts of policies primarily destined to fight over-fishing. These policies sometimes undermine their livelihoods without addressing the root cause of overfishing: the over-capacity and illegal fishing of small pelagics, reserved to artisanal fishers by law, by the industrial trawlers.
The double-edged sword of closed fishing seasons
Since 2019, Ghana has implemented fishing closed seasons to help over-exploited fish resources recuperate, although the 2020 closed season didn’t take place due to the Covid 19 pandemic. This year, the fishing closed season is planned to start from 1st July to 31st July, for artisanal canoes and inshore vessels, and from 1st July to 31st August for industrial trawlers.
Stopping fishing for an entire month is not easy for an artisanal fisherman. As shown by a study undertaken by the Fisheries Scientific Survey Department of the Fisheries Commission, 81% of artisanal fishers in Ghana live solely from fishing, and have nothing else to rely on during the fishing closed season. The same study highlighted that 93% of fishers think the government should support them during the closed season period.
This message was heard, and in 2021, the government took action to help artisanal fishing communities make ends meet during the fishing closed season: 15.000 bags of rice and 6.250 tins of cooking oil were distributed to fishing communities. The Ministry also announced that 5.221 outboard engines had been distributed to fishers during that season.
Fishers are establishing operational early warning systems to save lives and properties in the event of tidal waves. The messages will be shared in audio messages, translated in the local languages of the fishing regions. Photo: Courtesy of Nana Kweigyah.
Nana Kweigyah commends the government for this “good first step” but says it is too little and sometimes too late: “We are not opposed to fishing closed seasons, but fishers need to have adequate accompanying measures. 15.000 bags of rice have been distributed, but we are 3 million people depending on artisanal fisheries in Ghana! Not every fisher got a lifeline during 2021 closed season…” Kweigyah explained that the timing of the distribution has also been a problem -sometimes, the rice bags reached the communities only a few days before the end of the closure: “Fishers’ families had to live for almost the entire month without any support.” And most worrying for him was the fact that no particular measures were put in place to ensure that the most vulnerable among the fishers get the support they need to survive.
He also clarifies that the outboard engines distributed during the closed season were not a support measure linked to the closed fishing season: “These were subsidized outboard engines which were purchased from the government by some fishers, at 10.000 cedis per engine (whilst the retail price on the local market is between 18.000 and 20.000 cedis), long before the closed season.”
For Nana Kweigyah, it is important to improve government support measures for fishers in 2022, if authorities want to make the closed fishing season better accepted by fishers: “The survey conducted by the Ministry showed that only 51% of fishers are in favor of closed seasons whilst 49% are against.” If support measures are not appropriate in 2022, he believes a bigger majority of fishers may turn against having a closed season altogether. “Going forward there is the need to identify other supplementary livelihood activities which fishers can easily switch to during the closure.” What will also improve the acceptability of the measure is for fishers to be better informed. Fishers have been participating in meetings about the closed season, but, her states, “we would also like to see the reports and all documents related to this fishing closure, and on what the decision are based, so that we can have an improved dialogue with the authorities, and there can be confidence in the system.”
For Nana Kweigyah, the government should improve support measures to artisanal fishermen during the closed fishing season, so that fishermen accept it better. However, the closed fishing season does not address the root-causes of overfishing: the over-capacity of the industrial fishing sector. Photo: Courtesy of Nana Kweigyah.
However, having a closed fishing season does not address the root of the problem: the over-capacity of the industrial fishing sector. “If this capacity is not restrained, closed fishing seasons only offer temporary respite to the fish resources. As soon as the closed fishing season ends, fishing resumes with increased effort and all the illegalities that have brought Ghana’s fisheries on its knees,” emphasizes Nana Kweigyah. He insists that management measures must address the fact that industrial vessels continue the over-exploitation of resources, and compete with artisanal fishers even within the Inshore Exclusive Zone (IEZ): “Having a closed fishing season only, without other measures to diminish industrial fleets capacity, and without addressing IUU, including illegalities in artisanal fisheries, will not solve the problem.”
Addressing IUU in Ghana fisheries is still an issue
In June 2021, for the second time, Ghana was issued with a warning by the EU, - one of its main markets for fish products-, that it was not doing enough to combat illegal fishing. Ghana was first issued a ‘yellow card’, in 2013, but it was lifted after two years when the government passed new legislation and a clear fisheries management plan.
However, in June 2021, after having identified shortcomings, including “illegal transshipments at sea of large quantities of undersized juvenile pelagic species between industrial trawl vessels and canoes in Ghanaian waters, deficiencies in the monitoring, control and surveillance of the fleet, a legal framework that is not aligned with the relevant international obligations Ghana has signed up to,” the EU issued a second yellow card.
Since then, recounts Nana Kweigyah, illegal fishing of undersized juvenile and small pelagics has continued, even if it is not so much transshipped at sea from industrial trawlers to canoes: “Trawlers of Asian origin continue depleting small pelagics resources reserved by law for the artisanal sector. They report the catches of small pelagics as bycatch.” But according to Kweigyah, there is compelling evidence that these resources are the target not the bycatch: “the trawl gears of these vessels have been adapted to facilitate the harvesting of small pelagics, in a way that does not allow for the escape of juveniles.”
Nowadays, to escape scrutiny, illegal transshipments at sea, - a practice called saiko – have practically ceased. The fish caught illegally is now landed in frozen blocks wrapped in cardboard, stored in cold storage, and later transported by van to the communities for sale. “The trawlers’ illegal catches of small pelagics, including massive amounts of juveniles, still threatens artisanal fisheries of speedy collapse,” laments Nana Kweigyah.
This illegal practice by trawlers of Asian origin, - many of which are flagged to Ghana-, puts a tremendous pressure on small pelagics. Because of this over-exploitation, but also because of the warming of surface waters, -another impact of climate change-, it is increasingly difficult for artisanal fishers to catch small pelagics. Indeed, these species do not tolerate warmer waters, so they swim deeper, where water is cooler, and it is harder for fishers to spot them.
At the recent OACPS 7th meeting of Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Nana Kweigyah (centre right) presents an advocacy document to Ms. Paula Santana Afonso, Director General of the Ministry of the Sea, Interior Waters and Fisheries of the Republic of Mozamique. Photo: Mamadou Aliou Diallo/CAOPA.
“To be able to continue scraping a living from fishing, artisanal fishers are themselves resorting to illegal fishing methods, like fishing with light”. This is a technique that attracts small pelagics to the source of the light at the surface and aggregates them. When told they should stop using that technique, fishers explain that, without the light, they can’t spot the fish, and will have to use much more fuel, going around looking for it. “This is impracticable and unaffordable, since premix fuel supply are woefully inadequate and the price of super is sky rocketing,” explains Nana.
“What is needed,” he concludes, “is a clear plan to address IUU fishing by industrial and artisanal sector.” For him, it has also become increasingly important to promote supplementary or diversified livelihood activities for workers in small scale fisheries, especially as steps are being taking to reduce fishing effort: “In this way, we will give a future to artisanal fishing communities in Ghana.”
Banner photo: Yoel Winkler.
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