RE- Fishing crew in police grip for illegally buying fish at sea

The attention of the Executive and members of the Ghana Industrial Trawlers Association (GITA) as well as the Bycatch Collectors Association has been drawn to a publication on the front page of the Saturday May 17, 2014 edition of the Daily Graphic and also on the internet over what was termed arrest of illegal fishing.

We believe facts have been misrepresented in the entire issue and publication which sought to criminalize an activity currently allowed by law but without adequate measures to properly implement.

The story sought to also create the impression that there are foreign flagged vessels operating in Ghana, which is also far from true. The Fisheries Act 625 of 2002 prohibits foreigners from participating in trawling, inshore and artisanal fishing and allows a maximum of 50% stake for foreigners in the Tuna Sector.

Our laws also allow up to 25% of crew composition to be foreigners and so seeing Chinese or Koreans in our vessels never make such vessels foreign.

WHAT IS BYCATCH

Bycatch is that part of fish that fishermen harvest during fishing expedition but which does not constitute part of their target fishery but also form part of the catch,because they may be of low economic value.

All fishermen do get bycatch and discards which constitute a certain percentage of their target and in the past, the bycatches and discards are “legoed” thrown into the sea. Any artisanal fishermen who happens to be around the area before the fish is discarded then they will be dashed with it.

At the time our industrial trawl fleets where not many and they were big vessels with strong hauls and long warps making it possible to fish in deep seas. This provided them additional capacity to store a lot more of what would have been bycatches with the incidence also low due to small numbers of vessels. We currently have licensed and operating over 100 industrial trawl vessels in Ghana with limited gross tonnage not exceeding 350GRT, posing many challenges, including storage spaces.

Whereas some countries allow even factory vessels that add value to their fish right at sea and turn bycatch into fish meals for animal feed we still have our trawlers dumping illegally what otherwise would have been food to supplement the protein requirements of Ghanaians.

THE BYCATCH TRADE:

In a country where we claim to be importing over 50% of our fish requirements and wish to improve our fishing efforts whiles at the same time guarding against over fishing of our stocks, most of which are no longer sustainably being exploited, we seem to be implementing policies in reverse without taking stock of impact, both socially and politically.

The bycatch trade, which is currently a major source of employment in Elmina and Apam particularly provide employment for over 50,000 people along the value chain and cheap source of protein to many people in the rural and peri-urban centres, sometimes people in the urban communities.

Fish which would otherwise have been discarded are collected by fishermen and brought to shore and sold at rates that allows the ordinary person to have a complete balanced diet on the table.

It has become a major activity with a huge turn over creating employment for many women particularly, who are very active in the value chain.

THE FIGHT AGAINST BYCATCH

Some fishermen have argued that those who trade in bycatch only get money to go to sea and buy fish they did not catch becoming richer and in the process denying them the fish they should be catching and that is where the war started as far back as 2001.

In 2009, the issue came up again and the then Minister for Food and Agriculture, Hon. Kwesi Ahwoi constituted a committee to look into it and present its report.

The committee sought legal interpretations as well as technical opinion from experts on the field and fisheries officers as well as protagonist and antagonist of the bycatch trade.

The report submitted to the Chairman of the Fisheries Commission recommended that the activity must be streamlined and piloted for a year to ascertain all its impacts before full implementation.

Since then the actors have been consistently engaging the Fisheries Commission and the Ministry responsible for fisheries for the implementation guidelines. It was in March this year that a letter from the Ministry made some recommendations for implementation which requires a cross sectorial processes and which GITA is pursuing with alacrity.

Whiles we do that we, cannot allow the fish to be dumped and in reality the trawlers cannot land low valued fish when bunkering a vessel for one fishing trip is in excess of GhS200,000, low valued bycatch cannot occupy their storage spaces.

Probably a more humane approach is required to manage the bycatch processes whiles the stakeholders go through the cumbersome processes imposed on them to be able to properly trade in the bycatch.

The situation is dire and bycatch is to a large number of Ghanaians and livelihood issue as the current deliberate targeting of bycatch collectors by the Marine Police and a few people is a worry. Signed... George Boateng Ampratwum PRESIDENT GITA

Cc. The Executive Secretary

National Media Commission

Accra

The Chairman Bycatch Collectors Association Elmina