A coalition of international organizations has launched the West Africa Sustainable Ocean Programme to tackle the region’s deepening fisheries decline. Led by the IUCN (the global wildlife conservation authority), Expertise France and the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC), the WASOP initiative aims to curb illegal fishing, restore marine ecosystems, and promote a sustainable blue economy.
More than half of the fish stocks in West Africa are being unsustainably exploited according to the FAO. The problem lies in both domestic and international overfishing. The depletion of fish stocks is threatening livelihoods across the region; roughly 15% of the GDP of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) depends on fishing and aquaculture.
“There is … a lack of planning and regulation throughout the region, and this project aims to address those needs,” Komlan Messie, regional executive director of the Forum of Civil Society Organizations of West Africa (FOSCAO), which helped create WASOP, told Mongabay by phone.
The European Union is funding the program with 59 million euros ($68 million) over five years. The plan will cover 13 coastal countries in West Africa: Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
For Bassirou Diarra, ocean campaigner with the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), the program’s launch is a promising start. “It’s an interesting project, but now we have to see how it will be implemented. Regarding illegal fishing, our resources are transboundary, so the approach has to be transboundary too.”
EJF recently published a report linking overfishing and illegal migration in the region. As local fish become scarce, many fishermen risk their lives trying to migrate to Europe, hoping to find work to provide for their families. “We should not only focus on what happens at sea, but also on prevention,” Diarra said.
He added that for the initiative to be successful, there must be greater transparency of information and coordination between countries, as well as more information made available to the public. “If the project can achieve that, it will make a difference.”
Little information is available about how these funds will be allocated among countries and projects. A 10 million euro ($11.6 million) call for pilot projects is expected soon to support local blue economy projects that have a high potential for replication and scale-up.
“The goal will be to develop businesses as well as technological innovations for and by Africans, in order to create jobs and thus reduce poverty,” Messie said.
Banner image: A woman selling fish in Senegal, where the degradation of marine ecosystems has affected a whole sector of the economy. Image by Elodie Toto/Mongabay.
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