Ghana’s
sardine fishery is on the verge of collapse as a result of
unsustainable fishing by visiting Chinese trawlers, according to a new
report from the Environmental Justice Foundation.
The report
examined “saiko,” the trade between foreign trawlers selling juvenile
bycatch to Ghanaian artisinal fishers, who sell the fish in coastal
communities. Previous EJF reports have claimed industrialization of the
process is depleting stocks traditionally fished by artisanal fishers,
putting them at risk of collapse.
For its new report, “The ‘People’s’ Fishery on the Brink Of Collapse: Small Pelagics in Landings of Ghana’s Industrial Trawl Fleet,”
EJF examined 18 blocks of saiko fish landed at the Ghanaian port of
Elmina, finding sardinella present in two-thirds of the blocks. Of the
sardinella, nearly all were juveniles below minimum legal landing size.
Examination of the bycatch landed by trawlers showed similar results,
with 99 percent of the sardinella below legal size, according to the
EJF.
“This is extremely worrying, since these young fish are
crucial to population recovery, sardinella are already on the brink of
collapse, having crashed by 80 percent over the past 20 years,” the
report said.
Depletion of local sardinella stocks may result in
dire consequences for local fisheries as well as for the foreign firms
targeting West African waters for fishmeal production. According to a
recent assessment by the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization, the sardinella fishery shared between Ghana, Côte
d’Ivoire, Togo, and Benin is near total collapse.
While Ghana has
strong laws on illegal fishing – this year, the country committed to
banning all domestic and international vessels found to be engaging in
saiko from operating in local waters – enforcement has been weak.
Trawlers routinely ignore Ghanaian law on the minimum mesh-size of
fishing nets, according to EFJ, which interviewed crews manning some of
the trawlers, most of which are Chinese-owned. The statutory minimum
fine for use of illegal nets and landing juveniles under Ghana’s 2014
Fisheries Amendment Act is USD 1 million (EUR 919,000), yet there are many examples of fishing firms being relicensed despite refusing to pay their fine or paying just a fraction of what they owe.
“In
a time when the world is facing coronavirus, stable livelihoods and
food security are even more crucial than before,” EJF Executive Director
Steve Trent told SeafoodSource. “Ghana’s fisheries are in crisis, with
the country now forced to import half its fish, and canoe fisherfolk
coming home from sea empty-handed. The state is losing millions of
dollars every year in revenue. The government has the ability to stop
this illegal and highly damaging activity now, and it must act to do so
without delay.”
Photo courtesy of Environmental Justice Foundation
