The Food and Agriculture Organisation has stated that Food security in West Africa is at risk as a result of the expanding illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
According to This Day, FAO’s Ad Interim Representative, Ms. Binga Stephen-Tchicaya, stated during the 23rd annual fishing committee in Liberia that the threat is also driving some species to extinction.
According to Stephen-Tchicaya, indigenous fishing communities in Senegal, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, and Mauritania are at risk of losing their means of survival due to the current rates of extraction.
One of the challenges identified by the FAO representative in West Africa is ensuring that fisheries continue to contribute to food security and livelihoods for all.
Other challenges include improving the management of shared and migratory stocks on the high seas and in coastal sovereign waters, boosting the resilience of coastal communities, and putting an end to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.
She claimed that effective fisheries management encompasses all of these difficulties.
She claimed that the study showed ways for sub-Saharan African nations to move towards greater transparency and sustainable management of fisheries in order to stop the irreversible extinction of species and preserve the marine ecosystems where fishing takes place.
She added that when fish are moved between ships at sea, it becomes more difficult to distinguish between fish that have been lawfully and illegally captured.
The research urges the governments of western Africa to prohibit transshipment in their waters, as Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire have already done.
“We advise that ships engaged in IUU fishing be blacklisted and forbidden from entering the area’s waterways,” she stated.
