In view of the global evaluation of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs) that will be carried out by the Commission in 2021, the author highlights the key points which will need to be assessed from the perspective of the impacts on African coastal communities. The author also suggests essential improvements to be made for the future of SFPAs so that they better respond to the needs of these communities.
The strategy of transforming seafood industry through voluntary partnerships and market-based incentives is the approach currently favoured by many environmental NGOs and donors. The case of Mauritania reduction fisheries “Fisheries Improvement Project” highlights the fundamental flaws with the corporate friendly approach and the urgent need to resist this model becoming normalised.
As the EU is negotiating a new protocol under the existing agreement, concrete steps should be taken to ensure the sustainable exploitation of sardinella in the region, including increased sampling of small pelagic catches, applying the recommendations of the FAO working group and starting consultations with neighbouring countries on joint management of shared stocks.
With the growth of fishmeal production in West Africa, CFFA partners are organising a regional meeting to discuss the local impacts on food security, employment, resources and health. Here we highlight the key concerns and set out some questions to inform the meeting. Instructions are provided on how you can contribute to a online discussion that will lead up to this event. Please share your views!
Since 2010, the number of fishmeal factories in Mauritania has increased from 6 to 23, with most of these situated in the Northern port of Nouadhibou. Analysis of the fish being caught to supply these factories published in a recent paper provides a new insight into the regional migration of small-pelagic fish, casting some doubt on previous theories that have informed regional management advice. The government of Mauritania encouraged new investments in local fishmeal production in the belief this would target underexploited stocks of coastal species, with no overall impact on the availability of fish for direct human consumption. Yet there is now concern that the factories are relying on a different species, the round sardinella, which is a staple food in West Africa, but is now considered over-exploited by the FAO’s working group monitoring small-pelagic fish stocks in the region.
This post is from Dr Sogui Diouf, Veterinary Doctor and former Director of Fisheries
Every year, when the cold season approaches, the Senegalese think about the Russian boats targeting small pelagic resources, which is when these boats come back and ask for fishing permits. The Russian fleet, which once caught 1,500,000 tonnes annually of small pelagic species along the Northwest coast of Africa, now only catches 400,000 tonnes.
In 2010, Russia, with the complicity of our then Minister of Fisheries, was granted permission to catch our coastal pelagic resources. But in April 2012, the new government ordered this fleet to cease its activities in Senegalese waters.
In 2013, a fishing agreement was signed between Russia and Guinea Bissau, offering Russia the opportunity to operate in the common maritime area between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau – once Russian vessels were in the common area, it made it easy for them to make illegal incursions in the waters of Senegal. This is how the vessel Oleg NAYDENOV came to be arrested in late 2013 for fishing in Senegalese waters without permission.
This year, we were wondering what strategy Russia was going to use...
Then we learned that, in September 2014, a Dakar based trading company, heading up a joint venture operation, had applied for ten licenses to fish for small pelagics from the Ministry of Fisheries, as a way to revive the fish processing company Africamer. Africamer was founded in 1979, and processed 20,000 tons of fish annually, 85% of which was exported to Europe. With a fleet of 17 freezer trawlers, it employed 2,500 people. Between 2005 and 2008, Africamer, which was the largest Senegalese company in the fishing sector, got into difficulties due to management errors. In 2011, after several short lived attempts to revive the company, Africamer was put into liquidation.
By coincidence, at end of 2013, the representative of the Russia’s Federal Agency of Fisheries had filed a request along very similar lines to the office of the President of the Republic: fishing licenses for 10 trawlers, operating 6 months per year to catch 100,000 tons of small pelagic species, for 5 years. The request also mentioned the revival of Africamer. The similarities are so striking that one wonders if the 2014 demand from the Senegalese operator did not actually come from Russia’s Federal Agency of Fisheries.
In addition to the reopening of Africamer and the 10 licenses, the request from the Senegalese operator also proposed to create a shipyard and an aquaculture site. In order to realize this ambitious programme, the operator came up with a completely unrealistic proposal to invest only 11 billion FCFA (+ - EUR 17 million). Moreover, the resumption of the activities of Africamer would require a supply of fresh products to the factory – but products caught by the Russian boats benefitting from the ten licenses are frozen on board and packed at sea….
This proposal for a resumption of the Africamer factory is merely a ruse. The promises to recruit workers for Africamer will not materialize because products already frozen and packaged are not suitable to supply such a processing factory. The only way that Russia has found to bring back its fishing vessels to Senegalese waters is to use a lie.
At stake are our food security and our jobs. In fact, fleets of foreign super trawlers fishing in the region compete directly with the artisanal fishing sector over access to the sardinella; a single stock that migrates between Morocco and Guinea Bissau passing through Mauritania and Senegal.
Sardinella occupies a very important place in Senegal fisheries, whether looked at from the landings, local consumption, jobs or exports. Some 60% of the 400,000 tons of the Senegalese artisanal fishery landings are made of sardinella. Nearly 12,000 Senegalese artisanal fishermen live only from the sardinella fishery. In addition, many related activities (artisanal processing and distribution) associated with the sardinella fishery are characterized by low barriers to entry in terms of capital, qualification and know-how and employ thousands of people. The importance of women in the artisanal processing sector is a favorable factor for poverty-reduction policies.
In terms of food security, sardinella is the most accessible source of animal protein in terms of price and quantity. Today, many Senegalese families can only be assured of one meal a day - lunch based on rice and sardinella.
Currently, the state of the sardinella resources is worrying. The FAO/CECAF working group held in June 2013, in Nouadhibou (Mauritania), found that, as in previous years, sardinella stocks are overexploited; fishing effort must be substantially reduced.
Senegalese artisanal fishers, aware of the overexploitation of sardinella, have already introduced restrictions including measures to prohibit the fishing, the marketing and the processing of juveniles sardinella, as well as temporary fishing closures.
Given this situation, we must, today, reserve sardinella for the artisanal fishing sector, while developing the measures already adopted for the regulation of the fishing effort on this resource.
It is a question of food security and social stability.
Dr. Sogui Diouf
Veterinary Doctor
CAOPA (African Confederation of Artisanal Fishing organisations) and CFFA (Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements) participated at the FAO Committee on Fisheries in July 2012. Together, they organised a side event on the exploitation of small pelagics in West Africa, and the sustainability and food security issues arising.
The meeting started with a statement by Gaoussou Gueye (General secretary CAOPA), highlighting the importance of small pelagics for West African fishing communities and their demands to FAO and its members, which included:
To document better the impacts of the various types of exploitation of small pelagics on food security;
To recommend to states and regional fisheries organizations to consider the role of small pelagics in the ecosystems and in food security of developing countries populations when they are to make decisions for managing these resources and allocating access to these resources;
To support initiatives and efforts that will contribute to establish a concerted management of small pelagic resources in West Africa;
To support efforts by fishing communities to actively contribute to the management of these resources in a concerted and sustainable way;
To support an aquaculture based on species that do not require feed made from wild fish, that answers the demands of local and regional markets, and that is not contributing to the unsustainable exploitation of small pelagics stocks.
This statement was followed by an analysis of the main developments affecting small pelagics exploitation in West Africa and policy issues arising, by Dr Andre Standing, from (TransparentSea / CFFA). Some recent developments (2010-2012) which can have a negative impact on food security in West Africa, were examined:
The return of former Soviet Union ‘super trawlers’ to Senegal;
The new fisheries agreement between Chinese Poly Hondone Company and Mauritania;
The expansion of fishing and fish trade by Pacific Andes group in West Africa.
Various factors influencing expanding investments and industrial fishing in West Africa’s small-pelagics were presented:
Links with industrial aquaculture (production of fish oil and fish meal);
Overcapitalization and decreasing profitability of global Distant water fishing fleets targeting small pelagic;
The growth of China’s overseas fishing sector.
A final presentation was made by Brian O’Riordan (ICSF), on the main factors that have affected the small pelagic exploitation by super trawlers in South Pacific, based on a case study of the over-exploited jack mackerel, and the implications it may have for West Africa, with the arrival of these fleets in the region.
More information
Read the full report of CFFA’s participation to the COFI
Read the full report of the side event on small pelagics
CAOPA and CFFA participated to various events at the World Social Forum, held in Dakar from 7 to 10 February. One event was organised by the European parliament Green Group, on sea grabbing, where a study on fishing joint ventures in West Africa, undertaken by EED/CAOPA/CFFA was presented. The study is available here with the presentation of Sid’Ahmed Sidi Mohamed Abeid, Chairman of CAOPA, on the consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) on small-scale fishing communities in Africa.
The other event was co-organised by EED and CAOPA on fisheries and food security. The event was broadcasted live on the internet thanks to the "World Social Forum Extended" system. Gaoussou Gueye, Secretary general of CAOPA, gave a presentation entitled "Small pelagics artisanal fisheries: a food safety net for Africa".
More information:
Presentation on the consequences of FDI on small-scale fisheries in Africa (in French only)
Presentation on Small pelagics in artisanal fisheries (in French only)
