Illegal fishing plunders and strains West Africa

By Richard Valdmanis and Simon Akam

FREETOWN/DAKAR Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:52am EDT

1 of 4. Sierra Leonean security forces guard the Marampa 803, a vessel apprehended for allegedillegal fishing activities, that has been moored off the West African country's capital FreetownJanuary 21, 2012. West Africa, recognized as one of the world's richest fisheries grounds teemingwith snapper, grouper, sardines, mackerel and shrimp, loses up to $1.5 billion worth of fish eachyear to vessels fishing in protected zones or without proper equipment or licenses. Widespreadcorruption and a continuing lack of resources for enforcement mean huge foreign trawlers oftenventure into areas near the coast that are reserved exclusively for artisanal fishermen, allowingthem to drag off tonnes of catch and putting at risk the livelihoods of millions of local people. Picturetaken January 21, 2012. To match Feature WESTAFRICA-FISHING/

Credit: Reuters/Simon Akam

FREETOWN/DAKAR (Reuters) - On a recent missionpursuing pirate fishermen off Sierra Leone's coast, the headof the Fisheries Protection Unit found himself adrift on thehigh seas with six crew after their rented motorboat ran outof fuel.

"We started rationing the food and water," Victor Kargbosaid. With no long-range radios to seek help, theyimprovised a makeshift sail from a tarpaulin, but with only one day's supply of food and waterremaining, they feared the worst.

"Even if we should die in the process, we knew we had served the country well," Kargbo said.

Their ordeal, which ended when a U.N. helicopter spotted the stranded boat after two days,underscores the huge challenge facing impoverished West African states seeking to defend theirwaters from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

West Africa, recognized as one of the world's richest fisheries grounds teeming with snapper,grouper, sardines, mackerel and shrimp, loses up to $1.5 billion worth of fish each year to vesselsfishing in protected zones or without proper equipment or licenses.

Widespread corruption and a continuing lack of resources for enforcement mean huge foreigntrawlers often venture into areas near the coast that are reserved exclusively for artisanalfishermen, allowing them to drag off tons of catch and putting at risk the livelihoods of millions oflocal people.

Experts say the annual plunder risks deepening instability in West Africa by driving communities

that live off the sea toward crime, in the same way illegal fishing in Somalia in the 1990s encouragedlocals there to turn to piracy, now a criminal enterprise that costs the world billions of dollars eachyear.

"Illegal fishing in West Africa is essentially out of control," said David Doulman, senior fisheriesplanning officer at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The acts of piracy, particularly in and around the Gulf of Guinea, have spread and become moreviolent, U.N. officials say, threatening shipping activity from a growing source of oil, metals andagricultural commodities for Western markets.

While there is no clear evidence that local fishermen there are behind recorded hijacks of ships andsea-borne raids on banks in coastal cities, there are fears their declining livelihoods could push theminto such activity.

"It would be reasonable to be concerned," Doulman said.

A study by the U.K.-based Environmental Justice Foundation showed that many of the culprits of theillegal fishing off West Africa are Chinese, South Korean and European-flagged vessels.

EJF says fish native to West Africa have shown up in market stalls in London, some in boxes"carrying the logo of CNFC, a state-owned Chinese company that owns many of the IUU (illegal,unreported, and unregulated) vessels operating in Guinea."

The European Union says it is working on the problem. An EU official said it seeks to curb illegalfishing as well as the sale of illegally caught fish in EU markets through a system of certification anda blacklist for violators.

China's Ministry of Agriculture, which oversees the fishing industry, did not immediately respond toa request for comment.

OFFSHORE "REEFERS", INSHORE CANOES

In an ironic twist, Sierra Leone's Kargbo and his colleagues ended up being rescued by the sametrawler suspected of illegal fishing that they had seized earlier in their troubled mission, theMarampa 803.

The 61-meter (200-foot) trawler, boarded by Kargbo's unit before the group raced off to interceptanother suspect vessel, was one of several owned by local firm Sierra Fishing Company (SFC). Itsmanagement had been outsourced to a Canary Islands-registered company, Taerim Ltd, according toprivate equity firm ManoCap, which owns 40 percent of SFC.

"We took the decision to outsource management, and then didn't spend time looking at what thevessel was doing," ManoCap founder Tom Cairnes said, adding management of Marampa 803 wouldbe changed.

A Sierra Leone patrol had spotted the ship twice in inshore waters reserved for artisanal fishermenbefore it was seized.

The illegal trawlers typically catch fish in off-limits waters near shore and 'launder' their catches byoffloading far out at sea onto refrigerated vessels, sometimes European- or Chinese-owned, called

"reefers".

Illicit fish catches off West Africa are part of a global problem straining world stocks. The UnitedStates and the European Union estimate illegal fishing yields as much as $23 billion worth ofseafood worldwide annually.

But the ocean off West Africa presents a special case: it has the world's highest proportion of illegalcatch at about 37 percent of the region's total, according to researchers, and as a result is at risk ofcollapse.

Lack of money to buy patrol boats, or even the fuel to run them, has crippled West Africangovernments' efforts to crack down on the illegal fleets.

"At the end of the day we, the local fishermen, suffer a lot," said Philip Gabbidon, a 32-year-old fromSierra Leone's John Obey beach, where brightly painted canoes are drawn up on the sand andwomen stack freshly caught fish in wicker baskets.

Other forms of illegal fishing in the region include the use of a single license for multiple vessels orsmall-mesh nets - nets whose holes are smaller than regulations stipulate and which end up catchingeven the smallest fish.

Sometimes local fishermen become part of the illegal fishing enterprises. The interlopers employthem with their canoes to access the off-limits near-shore zones along the vast stretch of coastwithout triggering suspicion.

On the cliff-lined beach at Ouakam just outside Senegal's capital Dakar, Mamadou Seck rests amongthe wooden pirogues - canoes hand-built from local timbers - after months working for South Koreanships.

He said a typical sortie involves several large pirogues and their crews leaving from Senegal'snorthern port of St. Louis, being picked up by a South Korean-flagged trawler at sea, and thentravelling thousands of km (miles) south to fishing grounds as far away as Gabon near the equator.

"In the mornings, we are lowered and in the evening we return to the ship and sell them our catch ata discount," he said, adding the pirogues often venture close to shore to catch grouper. "It is hardwork, but it used to pay well. Now it is more difficult because the sea has fewer fish."

LOCAL AUTHORITIES STRUGGLE

Like Sierra Leone, other regional countries like Liberia, Ivory Coast and Guinea are also losing thefight to what their officials call "pirate fishing". Guinea alone loses some $100 million per year incatches, according to the EJF.

In Ivory Coast, authorities have seized only four vessels found fishing illegally since 2007, eventhough local fishermen say run-ins with foreign ships are a near daily occurrence. Captured shipsare typically held at port until their owners pay a fine to release them.

"When we go out, we see Chinese vesselsand they take everything in their path," saidlocal Ivorian fisherman Balima Hyacinthe,29, who lives in a coastal village on theoutskirts of the commercial capital Abidjan.

Ivory Coast, which is trying to recover froma 2011 civil war, is being deprived of some55,116 tons of fish by illegal fishing everyyear, fisheries minister Kobenan KouassiAdjoumanil told Reuters.

The country is in talks with a French aerospace firm, Thales SA, about using satellite technology tomonitor its territorial waters, and is also seeking more high-speed patrol boats to intercept suspectvessels.

"A big problem is access to resources to patrol zones and to do the things you need to do," said theFAO's Doulman.

"There is also often very outdated fisheries legislation, so if you get caught in some countries youpay $100, and off you go. And thirdly, you have this endemic problem in the region, what we used tocall 'unprofessional behavior', but which we now call corruption," he said.

CASH BRIBES

When suspect vessels are intercepted by local patrol boats, their captains and crews often offer WestAfrican soldiers and fisheries officers bribes to look the other way, local officials and fishermen say.

"In general they pay money in cash and carry on," a military source in Guinea, who asked not to benamed, said. He said the bribes offered are typically in the thousands of dollars.

Sierra Leone has faced a similar problem with graft.

"Certainly in the past there have been issues that have taken place that have indicated somecorruption," said Soccoh Kabia, Sierra Leone's minister of fisheries. But he added the country wastrying to toughen its stance on illegal fishing.

West Africa's fisheries sector accounts directly and indirectly for up to a quarter of the region'semployment, according to the FAO. So any deterioration in the livelihoods of coastal communitiesfrom Mauritania down to South Africa could have a devastating impact on social conditions incountries already struggling to overcome poverty and unemployment.

West Africa is already a transshipment point for South American narcotics bound for Europe, withtraffickers often employing local boats and fishermen to offload and stash their drug cargoes alongthe unpatrolled jigsaw of mangrove-lined creeks and islands that makes up much of the ruggedcoast.

"The problem is that when fishing becomes more difficult, people will look for easier ways to makemoney, maybe piracy, maybe drug trafficking," said Ibrahima Niamadio, West Africa Fisheries

program manager at the World Wildlife Fund.

(Additional reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan, Alphonso Toweh in Monrovia, John Zodziin Lome, Ed Stoddard in Hout Bay, South Africa, Kim Miyoung and Park Eunjee in Seoul and JudyHua in Beijing; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Sonya Hepinstall)

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