Watchdog Says Ghana’s Fisheries On Brink Of Collapse

As Chinese trawlers arrive

By Benson Afful

Although a moratorium on new fishing vessels by the Fisheries Commission, three new trawlers have arrived in Ghana from China and have been registered to the Ghanaian flag, the Environmental Justice Foundation, said.

The new vessels Yu Feng 1, 3, and 4, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation­ were built in China in 2016 and flying the Chinese flag before arriving in Ghana. They are now docked at Tema, registered under the Ghanaian flag, and awaiting licensing by the Fisheries Commission.

Per the government’s Fisheries Management Plan, the country’s fishery can sustain 48 trawlers, yet, 76 trawlers licensed at the end of 2019.

To protect Ghana’s food security and local livelihoods, especially in these worrying times of COVID-19, the government must ensure that the industrial fleet is a sustainable size. Ghana’s National Canoe Fishermen Council (GNCFC) has since written to the Fisheries Commission opposing any decision to grant the vessel licenses to fish in Ghana’s waters.

The country is already confronting major challenges controlling vessels with existing licenses in Ghana.

Ghana continues to see large quantities of fish landed by Saiko canoes at Elmina Fishing Harbor, even after the government and the fishing industry committed to ending the practice last November, the GNCFC said.

The Saiko trade – where trawlers illegally target the main catch of canoe fishers, transfer it at sea to specially adapted boats, and sell the stolen fish back to local communities ­– took an estimated 100,000 tons of fish in 2017.

Meaning only 40 percent of catches were caught legally and reported to the government that year. An issue requires urgent scientific re-assessment! Ghana’s fish populations are already in dire straits. Landings of ‘Sardinella have crashed by around 80% over the past twenty years.

As well as targeting the staple catch of the canoe fishers, small pelagic fish that include Sardinella, EJF revealed that the vast majority of fish traded through Saiko are juveniles. The watchdog said, this extremely worrying. The young fish are crucial to population recovery.

In Ghana, over 90 percent of industrial trawl vessels are linked to Chinese ownership, despite a prohibition on foreign ownership in Ghana’s industrial trawl sector, set out in Section 47 of the 2002 Fisheries Act, Act 625.

According to EJF’s Executive Director Steve Trent, over-capacity in the fishing fleet in Ghana is driving a crisis that will decimate livelihoods and food security in coastal communities. Ensuring all fishing is legal, ethical, and sustainable is more important as the world reels from the impact of COVID-19. Communities will need these resources more than ever. “The Fisheries Commission has the chance to do the right thing: heed scientific advice, refuse these trawlers a license and protect Ghana’s fisheries and its people,” he added.