Food security
Beatrice Gorez
New report from Changing Markets Foundation ...

The research presents evidence that this production for use of global aquaculture supply chains is precipitating the collapse of stocks and compromising food security

New report from Changing Markets Foundation highlights the catastrophe provoked by fishmeal factories in The Gambia

Food security

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Small scale fisheries take priority in the discussions on the CFP reform

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On the 22nd of November 2012, MEPs supported an initiative on small-scale and coastal fishing tabled by MEP João Ferreira, member of the PECH Committee. According to this resolution, small-scale fisheries are in a critical situation because the resource crisis has a greater impact on these small-sized businesses, which currently represent about three quarters of the EU fishing fleet (65 000 boats). A recent European Parliament study showed that small-scale fleets create about 55 % of all jobs on board fishing vessels, while producing just 27 % of the total value of the landings. Employment has declined by 10 to 30 % between 2000 and 2010. The Parliament asks for a fisheries policy that takes account of the specific characteristics of the small-scale fleets. This includes relative high job creation, and mostly fishing with passive gear. The few female workers in fisheries are generally employed in the small-scale segment. In its resolution the Parliaments asks for specific measures for preferential access to fish resources, fleet management, public aid, and market measures.

In its proposals for the CFP reform, the Commission confirms the importance of the small-scale fisheries in Europe. They are likely to benefit the most from a reformed fisheries policy based on a clear and time-bound obligation to manage stocks at MSY levels and to eliminate discards. The reform package contains an increased the number of measures that are specifically useful for small-scale fisheries, in particular access to funding under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). Small-scale vessels can also expect a higher aid intensity (75 % instead of 50 %) under the EMFF. As for the financial allocation of funds to Member States, the share of small-scale fleets in the wider national fleet is an important parameter for increasing the financial allocation. The European Parliament’s resolution will further boost the profile of small-scale fisheries during the next debates on the CFP reform.

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African Women Fishworkers conference on fish and food security

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Around sixty women artisanal fishworkers from 16 African countries are expected in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, this Sunday 18 November, for a three day conference organised by the African Confederation of Artisanal Fishing Organisations, CAOPA, with the collaboration and support of its partners SSNC, EED, ICSF, REJOPRAO and CFFA. This Conference aims at gathering women’s views and putting forward their proposals on how to improve the contribution of fisheries to food security in Africa. The Conference will be introduced by a video message from Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special rapporteur on the Right to Food, addressed to the women participants. The participants proposals will feed into in a series of processes affecting the future of African small scale fishing communities, in particular the FAO process for developing international guidelines for securing sustainable small scale fisheries. The results of the conference will also be presented during the celebration of the World Fisheries day, in Abidjan, on November 21st 2012.

Participating countries: Tunisia, Mauritania, Sénégal, Cape verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Mali, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Congo, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso

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Industrial fisheries destroy livelihood of northern and southern fishermen

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At the fisheries conference of northern German states in Kiel last week, the development associations Protestant Development Service (EED) and Fair Oceans demanded from German ministers to press the EU to ensure sustainable fishing of European fishermen outside of European waters. “It is not acceptable that the recent proposals for a European fisheries reform lack solutions for the improvement of the situation for local fishermen,” says Andrea Müller-Frank from EED.

“More and more foreign trawlers are active in Senegalese waters. Licenses are attributed without consideration for environmental and social consequences. Many industrial trawlers illegally enter the zones reserved for small fisheries. This is how we small fishermen are deprived of our livelihood,” says Gaoussou Gueyse, secretary general of the West African Fisheries Federation. “Future EU fisheries agreements have to promote the development of our fisheries sector and not only deplete our fish stocks,” adds Gueye.

Since nowadays more than half of all European fisheries imports come from developing countries, Germany’s responsibility for the fisheries sector in target countries is growing. “The ministries assembled in Kiel have to push for an EU fisheries reform that reduces European dependency on imports and reestablishes fish stocks in the North Sea and Baltic Sea in an environmentally sustainable way,” says Fair Oceans’ Kai Kaschinski.

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www.eed.de

Second Mbour Fisheries Forum

About 300 small-scale fishing professionals are due to meet on July 4th at the David Boila Centre in Mbour, for the forum on "Who owns the fish?", according to a press release of the APS.

Gathered into the Artisanal Fishing Professionals’ Coalition of Mbour (CPPAM), these actors will discuss two topics: "Food security in fisheries, in particular in the case of small pelagics" and "Participative surveillance".

Participants will come from Mbour and from various Senegalese fishing communities, including Kayar, Ngaparou, Joal, Foundiougne, Djiffer, Yène, Ndayane, Lompoul, Fass Boye, Saint-Louis, etc.

This meeting will be the second forum organized by the CPPAM, after the one of July 2010, focussed on the themes of good governance, financing issues in artisanal fisheries, and value addition of catches.

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Welcome words by Gaoussou Gueye, vice-president of CONIPAS (in French only)

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Echoes from COFI 29

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The twenty-ninth session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI 29) was held in Rome, 31 January to 4 February 2011.

CFFA and other support NGOs facilitated the attendance of many small-scale fisheries representatives from around the world in order to defend their interests and voice their concerns to national delegations officials and intergovernmental organizations, including on the item 10 of the session’s agenda on the creation of an international instrument for small-scale fisheries.

At this occasion, CFFA’s African partners, from which many are now members of the African Confederation of Small-scale Fisheries Professional Organizations (CAOPA) reiterated the principles and recommendations of the Banjul Civil Society Declaration drafted in September 2010 during the first Conference of African Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture. The AU (African Union) and NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development) have recognized the importance of this declaration that will be taken into consideration in their work.

In view of the important role played by small-scale fisheries the Committee approved the development of a new international instrument on small-scale fisheries to complement the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF), drawing on relevant existing instruments. The Committee agreed that the new instrument could take the form of an international guidelines, be voluntary in nature, address both inland and marine fisheries and focus on the needs of developing countries. The Committee recommended that all stakeholders be associated, as appropriate, with its development.

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Experts: Denmark supports harmful EU fisheries in Africa

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Reports conclude that the EU’s fisheries agreements with developing countries are socially, environmentally and economically harmful. By Michael Rothenborg, Politiken, 7 December 2010

“The EU gives us development aid with one hand, but takes away at least the same amount of money by over-fishing our oceans with the other “. Professor Ahmed Mahmoud Cherif is a former chief negotiator for Mauritania and has helped to conclude several fisheries agreements with the EU. Today he regrets having done so, and has therefore become president of the Mauritanian NGO, Pechecops.

A suffering population “Mauritania’s government is given millions to let Spanish and other European vessels fish for octopus, squid and other profitable species. But it is a short-sighted strategy and will not benefit the Mauritanian population. The people suffer because the overfishing of the European vessels leaves fewer fish for them to fish, and because the local fishing industry will lose jobs because of this, ” says Ahmed Mahmoud Cherif. He is in Denmark to participate in conference on the issue of overfishing. The conference that is to be held in the Danish parliament today has been organized by the Democracy in Europe (DEO) and the Danish Fishing Network. They point to reports from among others the UN and the World Bank, that indicate that fishing agreements with developing countries do more harm than good.

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Second ACP Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers Council

Vassen Kauppaymuthoo, chairman of the Mauritian NGO Kalipso, participated in the second ACP Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers Council on behalf of CFFA, in Seychelles from 22 to 25 November 2010. That gave the occasion to make the Ministers and ACP officials aware of the point of view and proposals of the African civil society on the future of fisheries, voiced in September through the Banjul Declaration adopted by African civil society organizations in margin of the Conference of African Ministers of Fisheries and Aquaculture, in which Kalipso and CFFA participated.

The presence of CFFA as observer at the ACP Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers Council allowed artisanal fisheries to gain better visibility, showed their potential and raised the issues that need to be addressed by decision makers in order to ensure artisanal fisheries a sustainable future. However, Vassen Kauppaymuthoo deplores “the impression of some kind of duplication of efforts at the level of these various institutions, because too few bonds are made between these different ministerial meetings and what is actually discussed inside”.

Furthermore, he highlights that “aquaculture was mentioned several times during the Ministers Council, and presented as the panacea to face the collapse of wild fish stocks. But one should not forget that industrial aquaculture development in coastal areas leads to the privatization of the public maritime domain, sometimes jeopardizing the existence of coastal communities living there and provoking a lot of damages and pollutions to the coastal environment: the list of countries that have faced ecological disasters linked to industrial aquaculture is evergrowing. ACP countries cannot neglect these aspects and intensive aquaculture in sensitive tropical ecosystems like Maurice or Seychelles should be proscribed”.

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FAO Committee on Fisheries - West African artisanal fishing sector: a proactive force for sustainable fisheries

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Small-scale fisheries were the focus of attention of Governments participating in the twenty eighth session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries, COFI, who discussed how to follow up on results of the World Conference on Small Scale Fisheries (4SSF), held in Bangkok, Thailand, October 2008.

A statement was issued by small scale fishing organizations, present at the event as observers, highlighting the importance of their sector, and calling for a Special Chapter to be included in FAO’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries on small scale fisheries. They also advised that COFI should consider setting up a Sub Committee devoted to Small Scale fisheries, and/or develop Technical Guidelines or International Plan of Action (IPOA) on small-scale fishing, which should be elaborated by FAO and its members through an inclusive process involving small-scale fishers and civil society.

Mamayawa Sandouno, from Guinea, a member of the ICSF recalled that these demands were made by civil society during the FAO 4SSF Conference. ‘Civil society organizations insisted there that development efforts in the fisheries sector, including in our West African countries, should be geared towards guaranteeing the freedom, the well-being and the dignity of all men and women working in the artisanal fisheries sector’, she said.

West African artisanal fishing sector: a proactive force for sustainable fisheries