Vassen Kauppaymuthoo, chairman of the Mauritian NGO Kalipso, participated in the second ACP Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers Council on behalf of CFFA, in Seychelles from 22 to 25 November 2010. That gave the occasion to make the Ministers and ACP officials aware of the point of view and proposals of the African civil society on the future of fisheries, voiced in September through the Banjul Declaration adopted by African civil society organizations in margin of the Conference of African Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture, in which Kalipso and CFFA participated.
The presence of CFFA as observer at the ACP Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers Council allowed artisanal fisheries to gain better visibility, showed their potential and raised the issues that need to be addressed by decision makers in order to ensure artisanal fisheries a sustainable future. However, Vassen Kauppaymuthoo deplores “the impression of some kind of duplication of efforts at the level of these various institutions, because too few bonds are made between these different ministerial meetings and what is actually discussed inside”.
Furthermore, he highlights that “aquaculture was mentioned several times during the Ministers Council, and presented as the panacea to face the collapse of wild fish stocks. But one should not forget that industrial aquaculture development in coastal areas leads to the privatization of the public maritime domain, sometimes jeopardizing the existence of coastal communities living there and provoking a lot of damages and pollutions to the coastal environment: the list of countries that have faced ecological disasters linked to industrial aquaculture is evergrowing. ACP countries cannot neglect these aspects and intensive aquaculture in sensitive tropical ecosystems like Maurice or Seychelles should be proscribed”.
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