Illegal fishing business thriving in Nigeria
By Emeka Umejei – Beatrice Gorez is coordinator of the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Agreement (CFFA), a Brussels-based Pro-artisanal lobby group that champions sustainable fishery agreements in Africa. One of its recent achievements, was the overwhelming endorsement by the EU parliament of the EU-Mauritania Fisheries Policy Agreement (FPA). Gorez spoke to Emeka Umejei, on the margins of a 2-day conference on the issues and the impact of the implementation of the UN Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS) in Dakar, Senegal.
Beatrice Gorez, coordinator of the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Agreement (CFFA)
She also shares her views on the Nigerian fishing sector and why illegal fishery activities are thriving
Q; what are the fundamental flaws in the UNCLOS that affects artisanal fishing
The UNCLOS was negotiated and signed 30 years ago when there was no talk about artisanal fisheries, ecosystem, and precautionary approach. In reality, many of these concepts were not on the table because fishery agreements involved a kind of talk-by-talk approach: It was all about industrial fishing and the result is that in the UNCLOS there is very little about artisanal fishing. There are some articles within the UNCLOS, which are important for artisanal fishing including articles about optimal utilisation of fishery resources; sovereign rights of coastal cities /responsibility of the coastal city to manage their resources sustainably. There are also a couple of article which though does not mention artisanal fishing, but identifies that communities depend on fishery for their food security; it mentions a little of elements which characterise artisanal fishery. This is quite an important part. Despite the fact that there is this kind of short-coming, for historical reasons, it was not by will, it is a good basis to work. And we have seen here based on UNCLOS that there are treaties such as UN fish stock agreement and a new treaty on the sub-regional fisheries committee area’ minimal access condition for foreign fleet. In the UNCLOS, for me, who is working on fisheries agreement, one very important article is the one that said that a state which cannot exploit all is resources should give access to other states to exploit its fisheries. It is an introduction law but it didn’t take into account artisanal fishery; and it did not take into account precautionary approach, for example for the precautionary approach or ecosystem-based approach, you could say for some species you have surplus because your local fishing cannot fish it but if you bring a trawler to fish it, it will not only catch those in which you have surplus but the whole part of the ecosystem and will destroy the ecosystem but this was not taken into account when the UNCLOS was being fashioned . This is not in line with today thinking and we have to seek how to address it in the present day. In the West African sub-region, what they have developed is a treaty on minimum access condition, which takes into account the artisanal fishing sector, and I think there is a protocol for protecting artisanal fishing sector right and developing their responsibility because one does not go without the other. It also takes into account the environment and more ecosystem approach. I think this treaty, really, is the first step to address the shortcomings of UNCLOSS at the regional level (West Africa)
A second step, which is very important, is that currently the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is developing voluntary guidelines for enabling sustainable small-scale fishery. The final technical negotiation will be next February and the final draft will be presented at the next FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) in June. Once these are adopted, which we hope for, it will be a very valuable instruments for states or regions to develop a protocol for artisanal fishery, national legislation to better protect fishery, better manage it, recognise their right. So, these two things, the treaty and the guideline on sustainable fishing are really two tools that enable the state to address the shortcomings of UNCLOS, which was signed thirty 30years
Q: has the sub-regional treaties been ratified by the member states
It entered into force, I think very recently; entering into force is one thing but it needs to be translated into national legislation, which may take time. Similarly, the UNCLOS was signed 30 years ago but it is only this year that the European Union translated in its legislation the issue of surplus. So, it takes time but you can refer to it.
Q; One of the fundamental issue here is who defines the surplus and how is it defined
It is the responsibility of the coastal state to define the surplus; by looking at the national fishing capacity and there development needs, and if there is something left, then it can give access to others. But one of the very important problem which was also discussed here is how do you define the artisanal fishing capacity because you have research, which generally underestimate the capacity of the artisanal fishing sector. In a country like Senegal you have about 16000-18,000 pirogues, they are all along the coast so it is not easy to know how much they are catching .So, is difficult but still is possible to project. Another reason why it is underestimated is because of the surplus; if you just say your artisanal sector only catches 10% of the stock gives you 90% to sell to others(foreign trawlers) ; if you say your country catches 50% then what you can sale to others is much smaller. So, there is some kind of vicious cycle
Q: In your estimation, has the EU fisheries agreement with African states been transparent about taking these issues into consideration?
They have not been always very transparent but there was a lot of campaigning at EU levels and also with our partners to make them more transparent; so, it is not as if they are transparent because they are good, but because they are pushed. And I think such push, may be, today does not exists in countries like China, Russia, South Korea where their agreements are not very transparent or are not transparent at all. But being transparent does not make it good; transparency is very important but you can be transparent and be bad. Until this year, it was not in the EU law that they could get only the surplus; at least now it is in law and the first agreement which was negotiated according to the new law is the agreement with Mauritania. The thing is that it is the first agreement which is a non-access agreement.
Q; How would this agreement with Mauritania translates affect other African countries
We shall push it so that it can be implemented in other African countries, and the second thing we need to push is that the convention on minimal access condition becomes the reference, where EU should not go and negotiate if it doesn’t respect this convention. However, fishing agreement is only one way by which foreign fleets are getting to your waters. In Nigeria, you have a lot of fishing firms with private licences and sometimes they re-flag fishing in Nigeria without any fishing agreement with Nigeria. There all these grey ways that is not transparent, no information doing damage without being much known. We really have to go toward a system where all the fleet is controlled the same way; abide by the same kind of standard and we are far from that. We can do that if there is fishing agreement; if there is not fishing agreement they still get access.
Q: What is your view on China’s involvement in the sub regional fishery sector?
China is a very interesting case because beginning 2001, it has proactive policies to expand outside the Chinese borders and they spend huge amount of money to promote their policies, including in the fishing sector. Nowadays, China has about 2000 fishing vessels in the world while the EU has about 700 vessels. In Africa, what we know is that China is recorded to have between 300 and 400 fishing trawlers to be in African waters, which means there may be much more and it also does not take into account that many Chinese trawlers are re-flagging to coastal countries; in Senegal you have quite a lot of joint-venture with Chinese ventures. All along the coast, you have a lot of Chinese vessels localised; They have the local flag but they are from Chinese capital; they are Chinese apart from the flag. How big it is?- the thing is that they are catching quite a lot of fish and the problem is that Chinese agreements are not transparent and they are not also transparent in terms of r reporting their catches. If you take the FAO data, they report something like 500,000 tons of fish caught outside China but if you look at some study that have been done by the University British Columbia last year, they are again trying to reconstruct data to see whether is true what you are saying if you can deduce how much you need to catch to become economically viable and how much you are catching and if you do that, you come out with a figure 3,000,000 tons of fish, which is far much than the half million ton they are declaring . That is the kind of problem that China is catching
Q; How do you think the sub- region should go about this whole issue of fishery agreements with emphasis on good the artisanal fishing community
The instruments are there now but it is all a question of political will. And I think political will depend, to a point, on the capacity that civil society, pressure groups like CAOPA will be able to put on their politicians to use the tools. The tools are there but it needs to be implemented. For example the reason you often hear that things cannot be done is that there is lack of means: human means, financial means and I will say two things about that. If you look at 10-15 years ago, you will see that an amazing amount of money have spent on the Africa fishery sector by the World Bank, IMF, FAO and the results are peanuts and there is been no evaluations of that. So, the means have been there and but is just the way it is spent.
The other thing is that governments need to do is to take a very important step on transparency and to put the list of fisheries licenses on the web so that the people can access. It is very simple and it does not take a lot of money or time.
