In view of the global evaluation of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs) that will be carried out by the Commission in 2021, the author highlights the key points which will need to be assessed from the perspective of the impacts on African coastal communities. The author also suggests essential improvements to be made for the future of SFPAs so that they better respond to the needs of these communities.
With Senegal’s yellow card, fisheries agreement negotiations between the EU and Senegal are at a standstill. Meanwhile, the EU will negotiate the renewal of its SFPA with The Gambia, whose waters are bordered on both sides by Senegal’s. How would access to the Gambian waters be used by EU fleets, at a time when they may be barred from Senegal waters?
At a time when the fisheries agreement is being renegotiated, Senegal is initiating a formal dialogue with the EU on the fight against IUU fishing. As part of this dialogue, the European Union has a responsibility to improve controls on vessels of European origin, and to impose heavy penalties when they fail to comply with the rules.
In a contribution sent to the European Commission, co-signed with 8 other civil society and environmental organisations, we highlight the most important points to be taken into account for the renewal of the protocol, to ensure that the fishing agreement has a positive impact for small-scale coastal fishing communities.
For the agreement to contribute effectively to the Sustainable Development Goals, it is essential that the forthcoming negotiations, prior to the thirteenth ministerial conference, focus on the main threat to artisanal fisheries in Africa: overfishing and overcapacity, especially by foreign-owned vessels.
SOPERKA, a Senegalese fishing company, in a joint venture with the Spanish company Grupo Pereira, wished to react to our article “Experimental fishing or experimental pillaging in Liberia?” Mr Kandji, Managing Director, Mr Serrano, from the company Pereira, adviser to SOPERKA for its fishing operations, and Mr Perez Bouzada, a lawyer, who defends the interests of the company Pereira, expressed their views on a series of issues raised in the article.
Sponsored by the World Bank, as part of their Liberia Sustainable Management of Fisheries project worth 40 million euros, this research campaign will take advantage of the CRODT research vessel, the ITAF DEME, launched in 2021 with the EU-Senegal Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) sectoral support.
In this article, the author extracts from the recent report ‘Feeding a monster: How European aquaculture and animal feed industries are stealing food from West African communities’ the main findings related to the European Union and its Members States, and looks at how some of the recommendations may be implemented in the EU.
As the EU is negotiating a new protocol under the existing agreement, concrete steps should be taken to ensure the sustainable exploitation of sardinella in the region, including increased sampling of small pelagic catches, applying the recommendations of the FAO working group and starting consultations with neighbouring countries on joint management of shared stocks.
The Association for the promotion of actors of small scale fisheries of Mbour (APRAPAM), in the framework of its mission, regularly organizes information, awareness and education sessions. On December the 18th 2012, in partnership with the Directorate of industries and processing of fisheries (DITP) and the network of journalists of Mbour for fisheries and environment (RJMPE), APRAPAM organized a workshop Senegal’s national authorization for the export of fisheries products in the EU.
Exports to EU market are subjected to an agreement. The agreement, obtained by Senegal in May 1996, 2nd West and Northern African country endowed with one after Morocco, is subjected to 3 years evaluations by the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) of the EU (1999, 2004, 2007, 2010). The delivery of the export authorization to the EU is based on the principle of equivalence of inspection systems and of sanitary control of fisheries products. It relies on authority transfer in terms of certification and authorization delivered by the EU to the Senegalese competent authority (DITP), which allows local industrial units authorized by the Authority to export their certified production on European markets.
Senegal’s authorization is the result of an improvement process of hygiene and sanitary conditions of fisheries products aimed at human consumption, mainly in the small scale fisheries sub sector. Many elements helped to obtain this result (appropriate facilities, competent monitoring and control services, education of agents, regulation, etc.).
The goal of this meeting was to think over the conditions favoring the improvement of the conditions and means of sustainability of these laurels. Challenges relate to governance of the sector and sustainable management of the resource, fish trade globalization, traceability of products and IUU fishing.
Adopted recommendations highlight, for the Senegalese part, for example participatory surveillance, involvement of industrials in the whole control process and the automatic registration of pirogues and for the EU part, she should support more developing countries to invest in a proper manner in monitoring, control and surveillance mechanisms and traceability. She should also insist on developing countries on the necessity to share data on vessels authorized to fish in their waters. At last, fisheries local sector should be more involved in order to have a smoother implementation of the IUU regulation.
This local event brought together about sixty participants, public and private actors and civil society from Mbour, one of the fisheries production centers of Senegal. Adopted conclusions are applicable for all Senegal. What is interesting is that they integrated in matters linked to authorization, not only sanitary aspects (conservation means on board, etc.), monitoring control and surveillance means of fisheries (traceability, control operations, etc.) but also questions linked to IUU fishing ((registration of pirogues, illegal licenses, etc.)
More information:
See the following link (in French):http://www.aprapam.org/2012/12/15/j...
And the full report of the meeting (in French) : http://www.aprapam.org/wp-content/u...
