Securing transparency in African Marine Fisheries

Contribution by Brian O’Riordan, ICSF Belgium Office Secretary

Over 60 participants from 16 African countries and from 4 countries in the European Union gathered in Mbour, Senegal’s second most important fishing town, to attend a 3 day Conference on Transparency in the Maritime Fisheries Sector in Africa. The event was hosted and organized by the African Confederation of Professional Artisanal Fisheries Organizations (CAOPA) in collaboration with TransparentSea, the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements (CFFA) and the West Africa Rural Foundation (WARF). This Conference followed the celebration of the World Fisheries Day, also organised by CAOPA, where the FAO Voluntary guidelines for sustainable small scale fisheries were discussed.

Participants to the Conference included fishermen leaders, leaders from the post-harvest sector including women fish processors and traders, civil society organizations, and local authorities. Also present were members of the West African Journalists’ Network for Responsible Fisheries (REJOPRAO), Seafood Choices Alliance Seafood Champion award winners in 2010.

Participants shared and learned about how massive investments being made in aid projects for the development of artisanal fisheries are not benefitting fishing communities, and where transparency is lacking on where the aid monies end up. So too massive flows of speculative transnational capital are being invested in industrial fishing operations in African waters.

The conference underlined how transparency is an emerging issue in fisheries, an issue highlighted by the FAO in its State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture Report for 2010, and being taken account of by the World Bank and other major donors which are beginning to adopt transparency programmes.

Amongst other issues, Conference participants called for Standards and Principles for transparency in fisheries to be developed and adopted. These would include making information available in local languages using simplified terminology; setting time limits for processing and responding to requests for information; making information readily accessible in the form that best suits the country where it is disseminated; and ensuring proper participation and prior informed consent in policy making and implementation.

More information:

• Read the Conference report

• Historic day for Small scale fisheries, VG SSF Guidelines and Civil Society news article.

• Read the full text of the VGSSF.

• The Benefits and Limits of Transparency, by Andre Standing.

CFP Reform: Good Governance issues

On October 5th 2011, CFFA organised, with some of its partners, a workshop in the European Parliament, on good governance issues in the reform of the CFP external dimension. The workshop was attended by about 60 participants, including representatives from the European Commission, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and staff, members of the African parliamentary network APPEL, representatives from EU and ACP Member States, from EU and African fishing organisations platforms , trade unions, fish traders, and NGOs.

The summary report highlights the main points of agreement emerging from the debate, which included:

• The EU’s objectives must be to ensure all its fleets fishing outside EU waters, whether under access agreements, private licensing schemes or joint ventures, operate sustainably, from an environmental, social and economic point of view.

• The EU should also promote the establishment of a level playing field for all fishing operators from distant water fishing nations and coastal countries, whilst recognising the rights of developing countries and their coastal fishing communities to have priority access to their resources.

• The EU needs to develop stronger measures to promote transparency in the CFP, and should also take a leading role in mainstreaming transparency in fisheries, which requires supporting other governments and fisheries organisations to implement transparency measures.

• EU fisheries agreements should be reformed so that they provide a framework to control all EU fisheries-related activities in developing countries fisheries, whilst providing the necessary support to ensure all private investments made in these fisheries are transparent, and environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. The reform of the CFP external dimension must ensure that the means and mechanisms to achieve those objectives are developed and implemented.

Following the meeting, CFFA drafted a list of proposed amendments to the CFP basic regulation, related to good governance issues.

CFFA position on Pacific IEPA global sourcing derogation

Four years ago, when signing the IEPA with Papua New Guinea and Fiji, the EU agreed to a derogation to the rule of origin, in the form of ‘global sourcing’. This means that, regardless of where the fish (tuna) is caught, or the status of a vessel’s flag, registration or ownership, the fish is deemed originating, and can therefore benefit from duty free access to EU market, as long as it is transformed from being fresh or frozen into being a pre-cooked, packaged or canned product. This was a demand of the Pacific ACP group in their EPA negotiations with the European Union. This derogation raised concerns and criticisms from the EU tuna industry. Following a request based on access to information regulation, CFFA received in August a copy of a recent 2010 study commissioned by DG mare on preferential rules of origin for fisheries and aquaculture products. The study shows the importance of the global sourcing derogation for PNG local development, in particular in terms of job creation. It also demonstrates that, if the PNG processing industry was to expand its production thanks to the global sourcing derogation, this will have few direct impacts on the EU tuna industry. Moreover, the study concludes that ‘the perspective of having the EU market flooded by imports from PNG does not appear to be realistic.

CFFA’s position  that, in line with their international commitments, particularly the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the European Union and Papua New Guinea should put at the heart of their trade relations the support of environmentally, socially and economically sustainable fisheries development in Papua New Guinea.

CFFA feels therefore that the global sourcing derogation is important to maintain in the future. Moreover, an extension of global sourcing to other fish products should be considered in the negotiation of the full EPA- so that all ACP Pacific islands can increase their benefits from offshore fisheries. However, CFFA also wants to suggest concrete improvements, in particular regarding (1) the sustainable exploitation of tuna resources and (2) the benefits of foreign investments for local populations, coastal communities in particular.

To improve the sustainable exploitation of tuna resources, CFFA requests the EU to deepen the collaboration with Pacific islands in the context of the WCPFC, and support efforts made by the Pacific Islands in the context of the Parties of Nauru Agreement (PNA), to improve the management of the regional tuna fishery through restoring stocks and implementing appropriate reference points and harvest strategies . The EU should also pay particular attention at supporting Pacific islands efforts to combat IUU fishing, and ensure full traceability of their products.

To improve benefits of foreign investments for local populations, coastal communities in particular, CFFA proposes that:

• Central mechanisms should be set up for demonstrating local benefits include full compliance with national minimum wage legislation;

• National labour law and rights, including on occupational health and freedom of association, should be included into PMIZ and other processing development projects, like the developments going on in Lae and Wewak, legislation ;

• any tuna processing facility should employ a minimum of 60% local labour;

• The partnership of local players (e.g. service providing firms) with foreign processing investments should be favored.

Such issues could be discussed in the context of the current review process, informed by the review report to be published, and appropriate mechanisms to address them in the future should be designed to improve the impacts of global sourcing. PNG civil society and coastal communities should be adequately informed and involved in the process.

OCEAN2012 initial reaction to the Commission’s package on reform of the CFP

The first package on reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), published on July 13 2011, sets out the Commission’s ambitions for the reform, including a proposal for a new Basic Regulation, a proposal for a new organisation of the market and a communication on the external dimension. The package includes some significant improvements, but is not the radical reform proposal that we expected.

This reform offers a unique opportunity to recover the well-being of our seas and fishing-dependent communities. The CFP should end overfishing, reduce damage to ecosystems, and rebuild a European Union fishing sector that is environmentally sustainable and socially, as well as economically, viable. Only such a fisheries policy will guarantee Europe’s consumers a rich variety of responsibly and locally caught fish in the future.

Now that some of the reform proposals have been published, it will be up to the European Parliament and the Fisheries Council to ensure that the CFP achieves healthy fish stocks and contributes towards achieving good environmental status for EU waters according to the 2008 Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Only through stock recovery can the CFP deliver a secure future for fish, fishing communities, and consumers alike.

More information:

OCEAN2012 Briefing

Impact analysis of the Poly Hondone Pelagic Fishery-Mauritania Convention

Presented as a model for promoting high value-added activities in order to take advantage of abundant, low market value pelagic resources, the investment program, included in the June 2011 Convention between the Chinese group POLY-HONDONE PELAGIC FISHERY and Mauritania, mainly targets demersal species, especially octopus, which goes against the sectoral policy, focused on the reduction of fishing effort through its development plan.

This Convention with a Chinese group, which has been implemented as the EU-Mauritania Fisheries Partnership Agreement negotiations were starting, only reinforces the skepticism of some as regards our fishing policy. According to them, the possible withdrawal of European cephalopod trawlers will be followed by the introduction of other foreign fishing vessels, with little regard for the sustainability of fisheries. This feeling is reinforced by recent decisions, such as to allow pair trawling, which do not seem to reflect the interest for sound management which led to the prohibition of tickler chains used by EU shrimp trawlers.

Read the analysis (in French only):

Analyse de la Convention par Pêchecops

EU-Mauritania FPA: contribution of the Mauritanian NGO "Mer Bleue"

The Mauritanian NGO "Mer Bleue" congratulated the European Parliament for its resolution of May 14th on the new fisheries agreement. We are convinced that this resolution will be a crucial step in achieving sustainable and equitable fisheries in Mauritania and in the subregion. By this contribution, they wish to echo the MEPs’ call for FPA negotiations between the UE and Mauritania to be preceded by a broader debate allowing the participation of citizens, Civil Society organizations and national parliamentarians, in order to ensure democracy and transparency in fish resources management.

No Increase in Blind Spending: NGOs and OCEAN2012 oppose an increase in de minimis aid

Selected Members of the EU Parliament are calling for an increase of possible de minimis aid to the fisheries sector, mainly to provide fuel subsidies to the fishing sector at a time of rising fuel prices. This is in strong contradiction with the EU’s commitment to eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies but, more importantly, granting more public money to the fisheries sector without a clear link to delivering public goods would send a perverse signal during the discussion on the new CFP.

NGOs and the OCEAN2012 coalition oppose an increase of the de minimis ceiling for the following reasons:

1. Increased Fishing Pressure: More than 70% of assessed European fish stocks are over-fished. While aid to operational costs could initially augment profits, it would also allow for a more intensive use of the vessels. This increase in fishing effort causes further depletion of fish stocks, decreasing catches and reduced profitability in the medium and long term. The aid is therefore not helping the fishing industry, but threatening the economic basis of fishermen and coastal communities.

2. Distortion of Competition and Delay of Restructuring: a further increase to € 20.000 of de minimis per vessel and per year can make up as much as 48 % of a vessel’s annual operating costs. For most EU vessels, all fuel costs could already be paid under the existing rules. As a result, fleets from Member States that refuse to subsidise operating costs can find themselves unable to compete with fleets from Member States that do. In addition, providing aid to operating costs will not help the fisheries sector to become more sustainable. On the contrary, such subsidies will delay the much needed restructuring and prevent the European fishing sector from adapting to the new biological and economic realities they face: over-fished resources and higher oil prices.

3. Under utilisation of existing aid: The EU fishing sector receives substantial amounts of aid, among others through the European Fisheries Fund (EFF). So far, most Member States have not fully taken advantage of the EFF. Overall, only 15 per cent of the available aid was used in more than half of the financial programming time. It is unclear why there is a need for an increase in de minimis aid if the existing instruments are not fully used.

4. Lack of disclosure and evaluation of de minimis: No information about recipients of de minimis aid and the financed measures has been disclosed by DG MARE, preventing public scrutiny of this instrument. In 2007, the European Commission already increased the level of de minimis aid to the fishing sector by ten times, from € 3.000 to € 30.000. Before suggesting another increase, proper review of the use and the impact of de-minimis should be undertaken.

5. Incoherence with Fisheries Policies: The CFP suggests the need for substantial reductions in fishing effort for stocks outside safe biological limits. Article 6(5) of the EFF specifically excludes financial support to operations which increase fishing effort. Also, guidelines for state aid require that aid must “serve to promote the rationalisation and efficiency of the production” while “improving the recipient’s income is, as operating aid, incompatible with the common market”.

6. Other Policy Incoherencies: Increasing fisheries subsidies, including for fuel, when the EU itself highlights the need to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies is counterproductive. It will also not help meeting the objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy, the Kyoto Protocol, or the 2002 WSSD objective to phase out fisheries subsidies contributing to overcapacity. Last but not least, increasing fisheries subsidies at the time of general cutbacks in government spending, and following pledges by the G-20 leaders to phase out fuel subsidies and agreement by WTO members to bring fisheries subsidies within WTO disciplines is counter to current international thinking and likely to undermine EU’s leadership in ongoing negotiation processes.

We strongly urge the European Parliament not to support any calls for increase of the level of de minimis aid to the European fisheries sector. Taxpayers’ money should not be spent in a way that undermines the objectives of the CFP, further increases the pressure on already over-fished stocks, delays the necessary restructuring of the EU fisheries sector, distorts competition among Member States and undermines fundamental EU positions in international reform processes.

More information:

Joint position on de minimis aid

CAOPA’s contribution to the first NEPAD/FAO consultation meeting

The first Stakeholder Consultation Meeting jointly organised by NEPAD (The New Partnership for Africa’s Development) and the FAO in support of the implementation of the FAO Strategy for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Africa will take place on 10-12 May 2011 in Midrand, South Africa. It will bring together participants from regional fisheries organisations, regional economic communities, donors as well as civil society. The three-day event will consist of a one-day plenary session and two days of consultation in working groups.

The aim is to strengthen and accelerate the fisheries and aquaculture sector in terms of their governance, management and adaptability to climate change. By doing this, the participants will address the rising importance of fisheries in meeting the MDG objectives; and the sector’s crucial role in economic development and poverty alleviation in Africa, in line with the CAADP targets.

The CAOPA (The African Confederation of Small-scale Fisheries Professional Organizations) will participate to the event, and has drafted a series of recommendations for African governments and for international, regional and national institutions. These include that:

• Access to resources should be conditional to sustainability criteria; 

• Priority should be given to local fleets, especially small-scale fisheries; 

• Fisheries agreements should be concluded on a scientific basis while respecting the precautionary approach; 

• Priority should be given to fishing for human consumption;

• Effective participation of local actors in co-management plans should be promoted by policy frameworks;

• Decision-makers should be engaged in an integrated coastal planning strategy; 

• Parties of fisheries agreements should reinforce their actions towards a real partnership in order to develop efficient management systems and to avoid overexploitation; 

• Value-adding activities should be promoted by structural actions in order to give SSF priority access to markets; 

• International fish trade should be fair and equitable; 

• Standards and regulations should be introduced in a way that allows producers to comply with them; 

• A permanent participation mechanism should be established in order to inform and involve small-scale fisheries professionals.

The CAOPA also stresses that small-scale fisheries professional organizations should be strengthened by:

• Setting up an appropriate deliberative process in order to confront ideas and interests and take coherent and legitimate decisions; 

• Defining ways to formally identify and integrate actors; 

• Establishing an appropriate information sharing system; 

• Building capacity by education and awareness raising; 

• Making fishing communities aware of climate change impacts and how to mitigate related risks.

Read the full contribution (in French):

Recommandations de la CAOPA

OCEAN2012 position on the elimination of discards in EU waters and for EU fishing activities in third countries waters

The main questionable fishing practices that result in discarding are:

• Fishing with unselective gear, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, thereby catching a high amount of unwanted by-catch; 

• Catching over quota or undersized fish, or catching protected species; and

• High-grading (improving quality of landings by throwing out lower value catch before entering port).

A number of policy approaches have been listed by the fishing sector as encouraging the wasteful practice of discarding:

• The setting of landing quota in a mixed fishery without the allocation of bycatch quota; 

• The bycatch rules (limiting bycatch to a certain percentage of the catch of your target species); 

• Minimum landing sizes; 

• Effort (days at sea) management.

The CFP reform offers an excellent opportunity to establish new policies that will address the discard problem. What follows are policy recommendations of OCEAN2012 for the elimination of discards under a reformed CFP:

1. It is vital that unwanted catches are avoided in the first place. OCEAN2012 insists that EU policy needs to effectively respond to the range of by-catch problems, including juveniles, endangered and protected species, as well as addressing the two main reasons for discarding: high-grading and the dumping of unwanted (over quota, illegal and uneconomic) catches.

2. OCEAN2012 supports the principle of a discard ban, as it would move the focus of management measures from landings to catches and thereby to overall fishing mortality. By making "no discards" the norm, any discarding then requires adequate justification (e.g. high survival potential).

3. The purpose of a discard ban is to avoid the unnecessary wastage of throwing marketable fish overboard due to lack of quota; not to provide opportunities for new markets that utilize discards of unwanted or unsustainable catches (e.g. undersized fish). Operators should receive compensation, equal to a small percentage of the value of the unmarketable landed catch, as is the case in Norway and New Zealand.

4. In order to ensure that biomass is removed from the sea in a quality and quantity that ensures sustainable exploitation and good environmental status of the marine environment in the long term, fishing mortality rates have to be set according scientific advice, following the precautionary approach as defined by the UN Fish Stocks agreement, and the ecosystem-based approach.

5. To avoid unsustainable biomass removal from the seas, quota management under a discard ban needs to transition from landing quotas to true catch quotas. All caught fish needs to be counted against quota. By-catch quota needs to be set according to biological parameters, in the same way as catch quota, and mixed fisheries management must be on the basis of protecting the weakest stock.

6. To avoid unnecessary biomass removal, fishing should be regulated at the appropriate (e.g. regional) level, in line with fishing seasons, promoting the use of multiple gears during the year, restricting gears that impact both species biodiversity and habitat integrity and diversity, and applying zoning measures that address both inter-gear/inter-sector conflicts and overfishing (be it recruitment, non-target species, or growth overfishing).

7. Under a discard ban, Minimum Landing Sizes (MLS) need to be replaced by Minimum Marketing Sizes (MMS). MMS need to be at least the same size as current MLS. However, any revision should respect biological constraints to avoid opening up new markets for undersized fish and should still provide a disincentive for the capture of small immature fish.

8. Incentives should be provided to ensure compliance with a discard ban. These could be in the form of providing preferential access to fish resources to those fishing in the most sustainable way, i.e. those meeting certain environmental and social criteria.

9. Enforcement will be equally crucial in the implementation of a discard ban. Onboard observer programmes will play an important role in the success of the policy. In cases where observer coverage may be impractical (i.e. small-scale vessels), the possibility to implement other observer techniques (such as cameras) to achieve fully documented fisheries should be fully investigated. Monitoring and enforcement measures must be imposed consistently across all Member States and fleets.

10. Special attention should be given to how measures to counter by-catch can be "translated" to apply to EU fleets fishing in the waters of third countries. As a priority, the emphasis should be on the need to promote selective fishing and to ban destructive fishing practices. This is particularly important in the coastal zone of tropical countries, where wasteful and destructive practices directly affect local coastal communities, who depend on fishing for their livelihoods.

11. In the case of the EU distant water fleet, OCEAN2012 advocates that the use of the most selective fishing gears should be a pre-requisite condition for participation in fishing under Fisheries Partnership Agreements (FPAs). The EU should initiate the inclusion of the issue of discarding in the negotiations for FPAs. Third countries also need to be convinced of the necessity to introduce measures to stop the waste of their resources.

Dowload the pdf version.

Letter to Mr. Barosso on elimination of environmentally harmful subsidies

Brussels, March 17, 2011 – 89 European and international organisations, including CFFA, have called on President Barroso to honour the Commission commitment to end environmentally harmful subsidies.

In 2006, the EU committed to defining a roadmap for the removal of environmentally damaging subsidies by 2008. The European Commission reiterated this commitment in 2007. And in 2010, the Europe 2020 Strategy stressed the need to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies. This is in addition to numerous calls by EU heads of state and the European Parliament for the phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies.

“We are really concerned that the European Commission is failing to develop a roadmap for the abolishment of environmentally harmful subsidies. It is ignoring its own commitment and the requests of both the Parliament and Council.” said the letter. “It is nonsensical that in this day and age public funds are still being used to subsidise activities that are damaging the environment on which we all depend.”

Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy and Common Agricultural Policy are advancing without any obvious analysis of the environmental effects of the massive subsidies handed out in these sectors.

“The EU is reforming both the Common Fisheries Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. How can we know these two policies will be supporting sustainable sectors if there is no assessment of the potential environmental harm of these subsidies?”

CAOPA at SRFC/FAO/EC workshop on monitoring

Sidahmed Ould Abeid, Chairman of the CAOPA, has been invited to the Workshop of the validation and adoption of the Action Plan for national and sub-regional cooperation in the field of Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), organized in Banjul by SRFC, FAO and the European Commission, 7-10 March.

He highlighted the importance of including participative surveillance in the programmes, and received the support of the Permanent Secretary of the SRFC. The latter asked States to ensure the participation of professional organizations into their monitoring programmes, given that they have a lot of important information in their possession, and to include them in their national delegations to similar meetings from now on.

Who should have the right to fish?

"Who should have the right to fish?" A question from the Greens in the European Parliament", new GREENS-EFA leaflet on the CFP reform.

Participative surveillance in West Africa

On the margins of the 29th session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries, following up on a first meeting on the margins of the CAMFA in September 2010, CFFA met with its partners, the organisations of artisanal fisheries in Guinea and Senegal, to assess past or current participative surveillance projects in these two countries and make a series of recommendations aimed at improving the effectiveness of participative surveillance in the fight against IUU fishing in West Africa.

These recommendations were presented to the European Commission during a meeting on IUU fishing between DG-MARE’s Fisheries Control Policy unit and NGOs active in this domain.

CFFA and its partners will closely follow further developments on regional surveillance, including in the SRFC waters, and will seek to involve fishermen in these processes.

Read the full document:

Participative surveillance: Recommendations

World Social Forum in Dakar

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:

• Joint ventures report

• 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)

Transparency in FPAs

CFFA and its Kenyan partner, Transparent Sea, organized and facilitated a workshop in the European Parliament, on January 26th, on ’how to improve transparency in the future CFP external dimension’ (see article on the benefits and limits of transparency).

At this occasion, Gaoussou Gueye, Secretary of the African Confederation of Small-scale Fisheries Professional Organizations (CAOPA), raised the issue of transparency in the context of EU-ACP relations through two cases: the Fisheries Partnership Agreements and the implementation of EU financed support programmes to the fisheries sector.

More information:

La transparence dans la réforme de la dimension externe de la PCP