Chief fishermen urges fisheries ministry to consider regulated fishing

Cape Coast, Sept 15, GNA - Chief fishermen from the Western and Central regions attending a workshop on "interventions in the marine fisheries sector", have appealed to the Fisheries Ministry to consider adopting "regulated fishing" under which there will be official "close seasons" to help save the fishing industry. They said as was being practiced in some countries including Cote d'Voire fishing activities are regulated by government by setting up a "close season" where fishermen are not allowed to go on fishing expedition during certain times of the year for shoals of fishes to breed and grow.

The two-day workshop formed part of workshops being organized by Friends of the Nation (FoN) as part of a project it is undertaking to help seek solutions to problems in the fishing industry. The fishermen pledged to support the government on the "close season" concept.

The FoN has carried out research in all the four coastal belts of the country where it was detected that the lack of a Legislative Instrument (LI) to back fisheries laws has left a vacuum that had made it impossible to strictly enforce those laws. Speaking at the workshop, Kyei Kwadwo Yamoah said the research which started last year also found out that fisher folks are ignorant of the fisheries laws due to poor communication channel existing between them and state agencies in charge of fisheries. He further stated that the Community Based Fisheries Management Committees (CBFMC) set up to collaborate with fishing communities to manage the fisheries resources are also weak. 15 Sept 08