The Chinese Pirates

Number of Chinese fishing boats operating in Africa soared from 13 in 1985 to 462 in 2013, say Greenpeace, the environmental group, with ships ‘taking advantage of weak enforcement and supervision.’ Chinese companies have been illegally fishing off the coast of west Africa, at times sending incorrect location data suggesting they are as far away as Mexico or even on land. 

A two-year investigation by the environmental group found that four Chinese fishing companies, including state-owned China National Fisheries Corporation, carried out persistent “illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities and gross tonnage fraud” in west Africa.

“While China extended a hand in friendship during the Ebola outbreak, rogue Chinese companies were unlawfully exploiting west Africa’s marine environment,” said Rashid Kang, head of Greenpeace East Asia’s China Ocean Campaign.

“If China wants to be a genuine friend of Africa, it should follow the path of the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy, which is slowly rectifying the EU’s own history of irresponsible fishing in the region,” said Ahmed Diame, Greenpeace Africa Ocean Campaigner.

As well as fishing in prohibited areas, Chinese fishing companies systematically under-declare the gross tonnage of their vessels, allowing them to evade licensing fees and operate in areas where large boats are forbidden. The majority of these boats are bottom trawlers, which use one of the most destructive fishing techniques. Ironically, China is taking steps to eliminate some of the most environmentally damaging fishing practices in its own waters. Faced with more competition and stricter rules at home, Chinese fishing companies are looking further afield. The lack of rigorous fisheries management and enforcement in west Africa has made it an attractive destination for large Chinese companies with the resources to send boats to distant waters.

Fighting Sea Monsters

“Our waters are overfished,” said Ousman Bojang,  a veteran Gambian fisher.

West African waters are believed to have the highest levels of illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing in the world, representing up to 37 percent of the region’s catch. The theft of West Africa’s fish stocks has been denounced by various environmental groups for years. Forty-seven industrial-sized fishing vessels currently in The Gambia’s waters, thirty-five of which are from foreign fleets. Meanwhile, artisanal fishers, on whom the population depends for supply, say they are finding it hard to feed the market. Prices have risen phenomenally and shortages in the market are no longer a rarity.

In an historic ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea – the first of its kind by the full tribunal – the body affirmed that “flag States” have a duty of due diligence to ensure that fishing vessels flying their flag comply with relevant laws and regulations concerning marine resources to enable the conservation and management of these resources. Flag States, ruled the tribunal, must take necessary measures to ensure that these vessels are not engaged in IUU fishing activities in the waters of member countries of West Africa’s Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SFRC). Further, they can be held liable for breach of this duty. The ruling specifies that the European Union has the same duty as a state. The SRFC covers the West African countries of Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone. The need for an advisory opinion by the Tribunal emerged in 1993 when the SRFC reported an “over-exploitation of fisheries resources; and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of an ever more alarming magnitude.” Such illegal catches were nearly equal to allowable ones, it said. Further, “the lost income to national economies caused by IUU fishing in Wet Africa is on the order of 500 million dollars per year.”

“This is a very welcome ruling that could be a real game changer,” World Wildlife Fund International Marine Programme Director John Tanzer was reported as saying. “No longer will we have to try to combat illegal fishing and the ransacking of coastal fisheries globally on a boat by boat basis.”

Greenpeace described “monster boats” trawling in African waters. “For decades,” Greenpeace wrote, “the European Union and its member states have allowed their industrial fishing fleet to swell to an unsustainable size… In 2008, the European Commission estimated that parts of the E.U. fishing fleet were able to harvest fish much faster than stocks were able to regenerate. The problem of oversized fleets using destructive fishing methods is a global one and the results are alarming and indisputable.”

The Africa Progress Panel, headed by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, said that illegal fishing is a priority that the continent must address. Another is the endorsement by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations of guidelines which seek to improve conditions for small-scale fishers.

Nicole Franz, fishery planning analyst at FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture department in Rome, told IPS that the small-scale fisheries guidelines provide a framework change in small-scale fisheries. “It is an instrument that looks not only into traditional fisheries rights, such as fisheries management and user rights, but it also takes more integrated approach,” she said. “It also looks into social conditions, decent employment conditions, climate change, disaster risks issues and a whole range of issues which go beyond what traditional fisheries institutions work with. Only if we have a human rights approach to small-scale fisheries, can we allow the sector to develop sustainably.”

Hobson's Choice

A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one option is offered. As a person may refuse to take that option, the choice is therefore between taking the option or not; "take it or leave it".

There is no fear but the fear of hunger. Mosquito nets are widely considered a magic bullet against malaria — one of the cheapest and most effective ways to stop a disease that kills at least half a million Africans each year. An insecticide-treated mosquito net, hung over a bed, is the front line in the battle against malaria. It’s also the perfect mosquito-killing machine. The gauzy mesh allows the carbon dioxide that people exhale to flow out, which attracts mosquitoes. But as they swarm in, their cuticles touch the insecticide on the net’s surface, poisoning their nervous systems and shutting down their microscopic hearts. But many are not using their mosquito nets as global health experts have intended. Across Africa, from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique, mosquito-net fishing is a growing problem, an unintended consequence of one of the biggest and most celebrated public health campaigns in recent years.

Isabel Marques da Silva, a marine biologist at Universidade Lúrio in Mozambique explained “That’s why the incidence for malaria here is so high. The people don’t use the mosquito nets for mosquitoes. They use them to fish.”

“I know it’s not right,” Mr. Ndefi said, “but without these nets, we wouldn’t eat.”

“It’s simple economics,” said Carl Huchzermeyer, a fisheries manager for African Parks, a conservation organization in Bangweulu. “You could spend two days making a basket out of reeds, or just use a mosquito net.”

Scientists now worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish. But the unsparing mesh, with holes smaller than mosquitoes, traps much more life than traditional fishing nets do. The Malagasy word for these nets is “ramikaoko,” or the thing that takes all things together. A “real” net costs about $50, an enormous expense in a place where many people survive on a few dollars a day. Scientists say that could imperil already stressed fish populations, a critical food source for millions of the world’s poorest people. Many of these insecticide-treated nets are dragged through the same lakes and rivers people drink from, raising concerns about toxins. One of the most common insecticides used by the mosquito net industry is permethrin, which the United States Environmental Protection Agency says is “likely to be carcinogenic to humans” when consumed orally. The E.P.A. also says permethrin is “highly toxic” to fish. Most scientists say the risks to people are minimal, because the dosages are relatively low and humans metabolize permethrin quickly. But with coldblooded animals, it’s a different story. In many places, fish are dried for hours in direct sunlight on treated mosquito nets. Direct sunlight can break down the insecticide coating. Anthony Hay, an associate professor of environmental toxicology at Cornell University, said fish could absorb some of the toxins, leaving people to ingest them when they eat the fish. “We think we have a solution to everybody’s problems, and here’s an example of where we’re creating a new problem.”

“If you’re using freshly treated nets in a smallish stream or a bay in the lake, it’s quite likely you’re going to kill fish you don’t intend to kill,” said Dan Strickman, a senior program officer for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested heavily in malaria research and development. “That’s definitely an environmental hazard.

Recent hydroacoustic surveys show that Zambia’s fish populations are dwindling. Harris Phiri, a Zambian fisheries official, blamed deforestation, rapid population growth and the widespread use of mosquito nets.

“They are catching very small fish that haven’t matured,” Mr. Phiri said. “The stocks won’t be able to grow.”

People fishing with mosquito nets tend to be those without boats or even tackle, often women and children, the most dispossessed. They work from shore, tugging the nets through shallow waters, precisely where many species spawn, creating another potential problem: the slow, steady destruction of sensitive aquatic breeding grounds.

Jeppe Kolding, a Danish fisheries ecologist, has challenged the conventional wisdom. He advocates a “balanced harvest” approach that calls for catching more juvenile fish and sparing some of the adults, arguing that mosquito-net fishing may not harm fish stocks as much as widely believed.  “Fish are more like plants than other animals,” he said, “in that they disperse millions of seeds.” But even he acknowledges that, for fishing purposes, it would be much better if the nets used were not treated with toxic chemicals.

Madagascar’s industrial shrimp catch plummeted to 3,143 tons in 2010 from 8,652 tons in 2002. Madagascar recently banned the use of mosquito nets at Antongil Bay, a crucial shrimping area.

Big companies like BASF, Bayer and Sumitomo Chemical design the nets. They are manufactured at about $3 apiece, many in China and Vietnam, shipped in steel containers to Africa, trucked to villages by aid agencies, and handed out by local ministries of health, usually gratis. The World Health Organization says the nets are a primary reason malaria death rates in Africa have been cut in half since 2000. But at the end of the line, in poor areas where little goes to waste, mosquito nets become many other things: soccer balls and chicken coops, bridal veils and funeral shrouds. Mosquito nets are literally part of the fabric of a community.

People know all too well the dangers of malaria yet also know loved ones will not last long without food.

Fish Farming

We are all eating more fish nowadays — except in Africa. Fish farming has been around in sub-Saharan Africa for more than half a century, yet still contributes little to the region’s food and nutrition security.

Catching more fish isn’t really an option, as most wild stocks are fully exploited if not depleted, while imports have become increasingly costly. The way forward is fish farming.

Egypt produces over one million tons of farmed fish, supplying 60 percent of all fish eaten by its people. It is by far the cheapest source of animal protein, affordable to all but the very poorest. Egyptian aquaculture took off in the 1980s and employing over 100,000 people and providing each Egyptian around one fish per week. It produces two-thirds of the farmed fish on the African continent despite the fact that Egypt is desperately short of water and suitable land for fish farming, while temperatures are too low for fish growth in winter.

Fishing - who has hooked the profits?

The international fish trade is breaking records, the United Nations on Friday reported, but the benefits of the trade are not trickling down to the small-scale fishing communities which make up the majority of the sector’s global workforce.

“The proportion of fish production being traded internationally is significant, at around 37 per cent in 2013,” said Audun Lem, Chief of UN Food and Agricultural Organization’s (FAO) Products, Trade and Marketing Branch. “This makes the fisheries sector one of the most globalised and dynamic industries in world food production.”

Global fishery production from wild capture fisheries and aquaculture is expected to set a new record in 2013 at 160 million tonnes, up from 157 million tonnes the previous year, while exports will reach USD 136 billion.

The benefits from international trade are not always reaching small-scale fishers and fish farmers, who constitute about 90 per cent of the sector’s global workforce and half of whom are women, FAO reported. 

Pirate Fishing

"Families have lived off fish for generations," says Issa Fall, who co-ordinates the Fisherman Committee "Fish stocks have been reduced, it's become scarce."

The ocean off West African coasts is home to one of the world's richest fishing grounds. From Morocco up north down to Guinea, sardines, grouper, snapper, shrimp and mackerel are part of a rich marine fauna exploited by fishing vessels on an industrial scale.

"These underwater grounds are now at risk of collapse," warns the Senegalese Fisheries Minister, Haidar El-Ali.

But in an incredibly valuable industry, fines are no deterrent to illegal fishing; foreign vessels always come back and can easily cover or change their identification markings. "Fines represent only a fraction in their operational costs," says Steve Trent, executive director at the UK-based campaign group Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).

 El-Ali says "Vessels we caught pay a fine and go, but they do it again,"

EJF researchers estimate that West African waters have the highest levels of illegal catch in the world, at about 37% of the region's total. Up to 26 million tonnes of fish, worth more than $23bn, are estimated to be lost annually to what is officially called "Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated" (IUU) - or pirate fishing.

In Sierra Leone alone, one of the world's poorest countries still recovering from civil war, the EJF estimates losses at $29m each year. Senegal's  losses are about $312m a year because of illegal fishing by foreign trawlers, quoting USAid figures.

Maria Damanaki, the EU commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, has recently blacklisted Guinea, Cambodia and Belize. These three countries, some of the most valuable sources of seafood, are now banned from exporting fish to the EU for failing to act on pirate fishing. South Korea has been officially warned it may soon end up on that list. Vessels registered there have been illegally operating off the coasts of West Africa repeatedly.

Over-fishing

Conservationists have repeatedly warned of dwindling stocks of fish off the West Africa coast, stretching from Mauritania to Guinea. Most point to over-fishing by European fishing fleets, which force small local fishing boats to concentrate their efforts in sensitive coastal areas. Six deep-water large fish species are steadily drifting towards extinction. Harvested specimens show declines in both weight and length.

Cameroon boasts 15,000 square kilometres of continental shelf and four million hectares of inland waters. Yet current local fish production remains around 157,000 tons per year, while demand is around 300,000 tons. As a result, Cameroon's fish imports rose to nearly 200,000 tons in 2011 (up from 150,000 tons the previous year). The Citizens' Association for the Defence of Collective Interests (ACDIC)  blames rampant malpractice by foreign trawlers in the face of stagnant fish supply, especially Chinese-flagged vessels. "They are still doing twin-trawling despite several government warnings, and are using small-mesh nets to fish even in off-limits waters reserved for local artisanal fishermen. And worse still, they dump the smaller fish in Cameroon and take the bigger ones to Europe," claims Albert Njonga, chair of ACDIC.

Sloans Chimatiro, Senior Fisheries Advisor at the New Partnership for Africa's Development explained: "The activities of foreign vessels must be closely monitored possibly with the use of satellites and high-speed patrol boats to check undeclared fishing; corruption by law enforcement officials must be severely punished; countries should set up large marine reserves; EU subsidies must be reconsidered, etc., [or] else the strains on fish stocks in this part of the world will run out of control."

 Along the Cameroon's 400-km coastline, artisanal fishermen and traders are stretching the limits of legality to stay in business. One current practice is the use of chemicals, including pesticides, to indiscriminately kill fish which are then scooped out of the waters. In Senegal, similar troubles have led industrial and artisanal fishing to slump. Experts blame overexploitation and a dramatic rise in habitat-destroying fishing techniques like the use of dynamite and twin-trawling. Foreign companies with fishing licenses bring in money and the sector constituted 13% of Senegalese exports and 1.7% of its GDP in 2009.

Source

Piracy: From Somalia to Senegal?

Recently fishing unions in Senegal in West Africa warned that if unauthorized fishing by foreign trawlers in their waters is not reined in, piracy could take hold in Senegal and it could end up becoming an international threat to shipping like Somalia. The economic losses resulting from pirate attacks in Somalia is estimated at ten billion dollars. The British newspaper Guardian in a detailed article on this topic on April 3 focused on comparing the warnings issued by Senegalese fishers with the past warnings by Somali fishers and it concluded that the current warnings about the influx of Chinese, European and Russian fishing trawlers in North, East and West of Africa should be taken seriously.

The FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, maintains that all the aquatic resources of West Africa have been exploited to the full capacity and even beyond. And currently over one and half million local residents of the region, whose lives depend on these resources, are facing deep economic hardship. Statistics reveal that European fishing vessels catch over 235 thousand tons of fish between the waters of Mauritania and Morocco alone while tens of thousands of tons are also caught with giant nets in the waters of Sierra Leone, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau and other countries.

The origin of piracy in Somalia goes back to the 1990s when the Siad Barre regime fell from power resulting in the disintegration of the navy and coastal guards.

At that time tens of thousands of people whose lives faced dire difficulties due to severe droughts and poverty in Somalia turned to coastal areas and formed fishing communities to provide for their needs and thus fishing became their only means of survival. When civil war broke out in Somalia, foreign fishing vessels began entering Somali waters illegally and catching large volumes of rock-lobster and other warm water fish along the tip of the Horn of Africa. In 2006 Somali fisher-men described the way illegal fishing trawlers not only deplete natural and aquatic resources, they also use various methods to stop local fishers from their activities. According to Somali local fishers, foreigners had torn their nets and made permanent bases for themselves near the coast. Now Senegalese fishers are stating similar statements and saying that catches are already down by 75 percent since 10 years ago because foreign illegal fishers have extensively depleted their aquatic resources and they are very worried about the approach of a big catastrophe.

Somali coastal residents who saw their livelihoods threatened by foreign trawlers took up arms and became a kind of coast guard. This however led to the creation of piracy in these waters. In time, ransom payments to poor fishermen of Somalia by these foreign fishing vessels encouraged the escalation of pirate attacks. Recently a number of local Senegalese fishers have warned that they will attack foreign vessels to protect their vital resources and local economy. They maintain that within the next ten years people will become armed and fishers will go fishing with guns aboard.

Therefore illegal exploitation of the natural resources, degradation of the marine environment, poverty and war created a vicious cycle of corruption, theft and destruction in Somalia and now the same may happen off Senegal waters.

http://www.payvand.com/news/12/apr/1109.html

The real piracy

The precious marine resources of some of the world's poorest people are being targeted by industrial-scale pirate fishing operations, to feed the seafood hungry markets of Europe and Asia. The problem is particularly acute in West African waters where fish is a vital - and often the only - protein source for millions of people.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world - currently ranked 180th out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index. Its waters contain some of the richest fish stocks in the world and could, if sustainably developed and managed, one day provide the country with much-needed income. Fishing currently represents 10 per cent of Sierra Leone’s GDP and is a crucial component in its food security (contributing 64 per cent of the total animal protein eaten in the country).

Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is the term given to any fishing activity that contravenes national or international laws - a simpler description would be to call it fishing piracy. The pirate fishing activities of foreign trawlers are stripping these fishing grounds so quickly that unless the practice is stopped there will soon be nothing left to develop. And most important of all, local people will be deprived of a crucial food source - just to satisfy the appetites of seafood lovers in Europe and Asia. Pirate fishermen would not be able to operate without a market for their catch.

Over 80 per cent of fish stocks are over-exploited, fully-exploited or depleted according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) most recent assessments. Scientists have estimated that, at current levels of exploitation, most commercial fish stocks could have collapsed by the year 2048.

http://www.ejfoundation.org/page163.html

“Blue Food Revolution”

“With Earth’s burgeoning human populations to feed, we must turn to the sea with new understanding and new technology,” Cousteau presciently predicted in his 1973 television show The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. “We need to farm it as we farm the land.”

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), only about 2 percent of the world’s food is currently obtained from the sea with traditional marine fishing annually producing about 100 million tons. Simply maintaining current per capita consumption will require 1.6 million tons more fish every year by 2015, increasing to 4.2 million tons by 2030. Since 80 percent of the world’s fishing stocks are fully or over exploited, sea farming or marine aquaculture may be the only answer for filling the gap. Worldwide, half the fish consumed by humans are now produced by fish farms. Harvesting the sea is the fastest-growing form of food production in the world promising a “Blue Food Revolution” based upon greater productivity of the sea than that of land for feeding the future.

As a source of animal protein, farmed fish are a godsend in a grain-limited world. The estimated amounts of grain are far more economical for producing fish than for beef or pork and on par with that of chicken. Whereas seven kilograms of grain are required to produce each kilogram of beef, and four for each kilogram of pork, only two kilograms of grain are needed to produce one kilogram of either chicken or fish. In terms of how much of an animal is actually consumed by people, fish also trump: approximately 65 percent of the raw weight of finfish is eaten, compared with 50 percent of raw weight of chicken and pigs and 40 percent of sheep. This is because fish are supported by water so they don’t have to put as much of their growth energy into bone structure resulting in greater edible mass. Fish are also low in fat, cholesterol, and omega-3 fatty acids which helps reduce blood clotting and in turn the risk of heart attacks - all notable advantages over other meats.

300 million people, half living along the coast, populate the 16 states ensconcing the Gulf of Guinea and the livelihoods of millions are dependent on the fishing sector. Average per capita fish consumption is estimated at 20-25 kilograms, about double that of the world average, and marine fish provide over 80 percent of the supply. Annually, the region catches about 200,000 tons of fish, which is the same amount that it imports. Amazingly, there are no plans for the region to exploit its 2.6 million square kilometers of sea with a sustainable marine aquaculture industry. The Gulf of Guinea boasts one of the most bountiful Large Marine Ecosystems (LME) supporting significant biomasses of plankton, tuna, sardines, mackerel, shrimp and other species. However, the Gulf of Guinea’s LME is over-fished and terribly stressed creating a crisis for those who depend on fisheries for their livelihoods and jeopardizing food security for the region. j Since the Gulf of Guinea’s wild fisheries have reached or exceeded their maximum sustainable harvest, marine aquaculture should be given serious consideration for food security. Offshore marine farming operations contemplates cages deployed in pristine waters having optimum currents for cultivating “free range” fish not sequestered in polluted bays and estuaries. This concept softens the environmental footprint and reduces reliance on wild fishery resources.

By developing a modern marine aquaculture industry, the region could become a major producer of seafood for feeding its population and feed others. The Gulf of Guinea possesses the resources to capitalize on the sustainable Blue Food Revolution as its vast non-renewable petroleum resources are depleted.
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=208927

food for thought

Agriculture is the mainstay of most African economies and experts insist that Africa has what it takes to produce food for its population of about one billion people and even export food to other regions of the world. The continent, which is blessed with good weather and geographical conditions, has the capacity to produce food to feed its inhabitants, all things being equal. Only 4 percent of the cultivated land in sub-Saharan Africa is currently equipped for irrigation. Nearly 90 percent of African food is produced from rain-fed agriculture. However, United Nations World Food Program on Thursday said it fears crop production in Africa will get slashed by 50 percent in less than a decade due to climate change. Just in the next eight years rain fed agriculture in Africa will be reduced by 50 percent.”

It’s often said that Kenya has potential to produce enough food for its population. A large part of the country is arable. It has the memory of what has worked or failed in the past, a sizeable amount of research findings, and a robust human resource base to meet the challenges involved in food production.

"Conservation agriculture is the core of climate-smart agriculture for both mitigation and adaptation," said FAO Senior Officer Theodor Friedrich. "And it is worldwide, growing exponentially." CA integrates technology in agricultural production and environmental management through three basic practices: crop rotation, maintenance of soil cover, and minimum soil disturbance. While the first two methods promote diverse and healthy produce, the third reduces manual and mechanical tilling and plowing, significantly cutting cost and consumption of fossil fuel. Friedrich explains that this practice mitigates climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil, thereby reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the use of fossil fuel, fertilizers, and other agricultural inputs. CA features adaptive technology, including a water infiltration system that adjusts to extreme weather conditions. In dry periods, it reduces the water requirements of crops by 30 percent, enhancing soil fertility to withstand extended droughts. During rainy periods, this method facilitates the course of rain water to prevent soil erosion and flooding.

Fish stocks in West Africa are declining drastically. And local fishermen are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their livelihoods or feed their families. The best fish ends up on European plates, while the rest is turned into animal feed or discarded as bycatch. One large trawler can carry 15 million meals’ worth of frozen fish to Europe while many Africans go hungry, unable to access the fish from their own waters. Local artisan fishermen in West Africa now find themselves competing against the largest of European trawlers. In one day, these massive vessels can capture the same amount of fish as thirty or forty traditional pirogue boats would catch in one year. These foreign fishing fleets then take their giant catch to ports far from Africa, making millions of dollars, while Africa's coastal communities struggle and grow poorer.

Feeding ourselves

Nearly a half-century after the Green Revolution, a large share of the human family is still chronically hungry.

"The international community has been neglecting entire segments of the food system in its efforts to reduce hunger and poverty," said Danielle Nierenberg, co-director of Worldwatch's Nourishing the Planet project. "The solutions won't necessarily come from producing more food, but from changing what children eat in schools, how foods are processed..."

Serving locally raised crops to school children, for example, has proven to be an effective hunger- and poverty-reducing strategy in many African nations.
Roughly 40 percent of the food currently produced worldwide is wasted before it is consumed.

In 2007, some 6,000 women in The Gambia organized into the TRY Women's Oyster Harvesting producer association creating a sustainable co-management plan for the local oyster fishery to prevent overharvesting and exploitation. Oysters and fish are an important, low-cost source of protein for the population, but current production levels have led to environmental degradation and to changes in land use over the last 30 years.

In Kibera, Nairobi, the largest slum in Kenya, more than 1,000 women farmers are growing "vertical" gardens in sacks full of dirt poked with holes, feeding their families and communities. These sacks have the potential to feed thousands of city dwellers while also providing a sustainable and easy-to-maintain source of income for urban farmers. With more than 60 percent of Africa's population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, such methods may be crucial to creating future food security. Currently, some 33 percent of Africans live in cities, and 14 million more migrate to urban areas each year. Worldwide, some 800 million people engage in urban agriculture, producing 15–20 percent of all food.

Pastoralists in South Africa and Kenya are preserving indigenous varieties of livestock that are adapted to the heat and drought of local conditions--traits that will be crucial as climate extremes on the continent worsen. Africa has the world's largest area of permanent pasture and the largest number of pastoralists, with 15–25 million people dependent on livestock.

The Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) is using interactive community plays to engage women farmers, community leaders, and policymakers in an open dialogue about gender equity, food security, land tenure, and access to resources. Women in sub-Saharan Africa make up at least 75 percent of agricultural workers and provide 60–80 percent of the labor to produce food for household consumption and sale, so it is crucial that they have opportunities to express their needs in local governance and decision-making.

Uganda's Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (DISC) program is integrating indigenous vegetable gardens, nutrition information, and food preparation into school curriculums to teach children how to grow local crop varieties that will help combat food shortages and revitalize the country's culinary traditions. An estimated 33 percent of African children currently face hunger and malnutrition, which could affect some 42 million children by 2025. School nutrition programs that don't simply feed children, but also inspire and teach them to become the farmers of the future, are a huge step toward improving food security.

THE FISHING SLAVE TRADE

Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa. Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group. The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.

The ships are crewed by untrained, illiterate workers housed in dismally unsafe and unhygienic living conditions. Crews were working and sleeping show quarters with ceilings less than a metre high where the men cannot stand up. Temperatures in the fish holds on some vessels where men were being required to sort, process and pack fish for lucrative European and Asian markets were 40 to 45 degrees, with no ventilation, On some vessels the crews of up to 200 had little access to clean drinking water.

The trawlers have mostly been identified engaging in pirate fishing off west Africa. According to a recent estimate illegal fishing accounts for between 13% and 31% of total catches worldwide each year.

Fishing Again

Ivory Coast is calling on the United Nations to lift an arms embargo that it says has prevented the defence of its waters from illegal fishing boats.Under the embargo, the government says it cannot buy the spare parts needed to repair two navy boats that used to patrol the country's waters.

Fishing unions say catches have declined by three-quarters to 40,000 crates a year since the start of the conflict because of illegal fishing.

"It's a vital sector," says Jeanson Djobo, the government's director of fish production."Fish is a staple food, so if the fishing sector dies, it'll create lots of problems for Ivorians."

African ministers are meeting in Namibia to discuss how to stop illegal and unregulated fishing.The meeting in the capital, Windhoek, aims to encourage governments in Africa and beyond to register fishing vessels and their activities.Illegal and unregulated fishing is estimated to cost Africa $1bn (£500m) a year in lost revenue.

The ecological cost may, in the long run, be much higher.

"The immediate ecological impact is damage to habitat, because they are using trawls, and trawls are not always good for the ecosystems - they damage habitat for fish," says Dr Diallo ,programme manager for the environmental group WWF's West Africa office, and a former fisheries officer."The second thing is pollution, because they are discharging at sea, and they can do anything they want."

A Whale of a Lie

Socialist Banner has previously reported on hw fishing crisis around the African coast and another story has come to our attention .A coalition of conservation groups and a leading fisheries scientist have accused Japan of damaging the fisheries interests of poorer countries.
They say Japan promotes the argument that whales are responsible for declining fish stocks in order to boost support for whale hunting.

Daniel Pauly, director of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, said there was abundant evidence that whales are not behind the decline in fish stocks.
"Blaming whales is an issue that is not only false - whales are no more responsible than the Martians - but which prevents the very small resources of West African countries from being devoted to understanding the real reasons why their fisheries are declining," he said.

Some developing countries, notably along the west coast of Africa, have seen stocks fall abruptly as fleets from Europe and East Asia have moved either legally or illegally into grounds that had previously been the preserve of small scale local fishermen. But some of these countries evidently believe the fish are disappearing largely because whales are eating them , diverting from the real cause of he depleion of fish stocks .

The Pew Environment Group said Japan has been raising the issue "to scare and recruit countries into supporting its move to end the whaling moratorium."

Africa's Fishing Future Bleak

Socialist Banner has reported about the problems of Africa's fishing communities here and yet another report has come to our notice .

Climate change is emerging as the latest threat to the world's fast declining fish stocks, which could affect millions of people who depend on the oceans for food and income. The report, In Dead Water, says climate change may slow down the global flow of ocean currents, which flush and clean the continental shelves and are critical to maintaining water quality, nutrient cycling and the life-cycle patterns of fish and other marine life in more than 75 percent of the world's fishing grounds. Fifty million people could be at risk by 2080 because of climate change and increasing coastal population densities, according to a Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) policy brief on the impact of climate change on fisheries .

Christian Nellemann, editor-in-chief of the UNEP report, pointed out that the "impoverished will take the greatest toll both in terms of reduced food supply, but also breakdown in their economy and their primary opportunity to move out of poverty. This is an emerging catastrophe of an unprecedented scale, and the efforts in the next two decades will determine the lives of hundreds of millions for centuries ahead."

He said West Africa, where several million people live along the coast and the fisheries provide the primary income and food resource, could be among the worst affected by climate change and industrial overfishing - including bottom trawling - combined with coastal pollution. "Here, an increasingly larger portion, often exceeding 80 percent to 90 percent of the fishery harvest, is caught by non-local vessels, such as from the European Union."

The report also found that up to 80 percent of the world's primary fish-catch species are exploited beyond or close to their harvesting capacity: advances in technology, combined with subsidies, mean the world's fishing capacity is 2.5 times bigger than can harvest fisheries sustainably.

African countries were most vulnerable to the likely impacts of climate change on fisheries. Climate change will change the distribution, conservation and use of the water of the earth and its atmosphere. African fisheries are particularly at risk because semi-arid countries with significant coastal or inland fisheries have high exposure to future increases in temperature, and the linked changes in rainfall and coastal current systems.
The high catches that currently allow exports may become a thing of the past, and a high dependence on fish for protein could threaten the health of many thousands as catches shrink. Low capacity to adapt to change due to their comparatively small or weak economies and low human development indices could set back development in countries like Angola, Congo, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
In African countries like Ghana, Namibia, Senegal and Uganda, the fisheries sector contributes over six percent of gross domestic product. Rift Valley countries such as Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda, river-dependent fishery nations, are also vulnerable.

Researchers found that lake fisheries have already begun to feel the impact of climatic variability, affecting fish production. .
In Lake Chilwa, Malawi, a 'closed-basin' lake, dry periods have become more frequent and fish yields are declining.
In Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, fish yields have dropped because of declining wind speeds and rising water temperatures, which have reduced the mixing of nutrient-rich deep waters with the surface waters that support fish production. This, along with overfishing, may be responsible for the declining fish yields from the lake. .
Lake Chad's area fluctuates extensively, but follows a declining trend. In 2005 it occupied only 10 percent of the area it was in 1963, with further decreases predicted in the coming century. Fish catches have not fallen to the same extent, but the overall productive potential of the lake is declining.

Commercial Overfishing Threatens Coastal Livilihoods

Socialist Banner previously drew attention to the exploitation of Africa's fishing stocks here and one again a new report of the problem has reached the mediaa.

According to 'The Crisis of Marine Plunder in Africa', a report published in November 2007 by the Institute of Security Studies (ISS), a South Africa-based think-tank, poaching and over-fishing off southern and eastern Africa has become so extreme that permanent damage to the marine environment appears imminent.
West Africa's fish stocks were exploited by European, Russian and Asian fishing fleets in the second half of the 20th century, but in recent years the industry set its sights on the shoals in the continent's southern and eastern waters.
The ISS report conservatively estimated that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Africa had become a US$1 billion a year industry. "In Mozambique, illegal fishing in the tuna and shrimp industry was set at approximately $38 million."

The UN Food and Agriculture Programme (FAO) has estimated that Mozambique's small-scale fishermen, who caught 84,065 tonnes of fish for the domestic market in 2000, will need to catch 171,040 tonnes to help meet local demand by 2025.
The pressure is mounting: Mozambique's shallow coastal waters have been over-fished, its population - 40 percent of whom live on less than one US dollar a day - is growing at 2.4 percent annually, and traditional fishing techniques can no longer compete in a globalised fishing world.
A lack of modern equipment and skills has left an estimated 90,000 small-scale fishermen, who provide directly for 50,000 families, unable to access deep-water species or make the best of diminishing coastal stocks. Only three percent of the 24,000 boats they used had engines that would allow them to fish in deeper waters.

Fishing provides a critical source of food and income to thousands of Mozambicans, but the ever-increasing local and international demand for fish, combined with rapidly depleting stocks, is putting increasing strain on this way of life.

"...I can't explain why they are gone, but each year we catch less and less. I do not know what we would do if the fish disappeared - it is how we feed our families. We are proud of our tradition, but we need help..." - Lucas Antonio Matibe, a shrimp catcher in the southern province of Inhambane, who has trawled the Mozambican coast for over 40 years.

Fished Out

The 2005 British Marine Resources Assessment Group, provided a conservative estimate that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Africa could be valued at approximately US$1 billion every year.
It was estimated that in Somalia the total annual value of illegal fishing in only the tuna and shrimp industries amounted to $94 million. In Angola illegal fishing was measured in the sardine and mackerel fisheries to be roughly $49 million annually, which equates to 21 percent of the total value of Angolan fish exports. In Mozambique, illegal fishing in the tuna and shrimp industry was set at approximately $38 million. In South Africa, for example, over a two-year period in the early 2000s some 320,000 tonnes of Patagonian Toothfish were harvested, whilst the annual Total Allowable Catch was set by the government at only 450 tonnes. Taiwan illegally entered Tanzania's Exclusive Economic Zone and took approximately $20 million worth of tuna.

The problem did not stem largely from rogue fishing companies who evade laws and break regulations with impunity, but "vested interests" that allowed this situation to occur, and that these vested interests span not only foreign governments and inter-governmental organisations, but also African elected leaders and public officials according to Andre Standing, author of a new Institute for Security Studies study . The overfishing and some forms of illegal fishing flourish due to corruption and expediency by those in public office or government .

Fish is a critical source of animal protein in poor countries; globally it provides more than 2.6 billion people with at least one-fifth of their average per capita animal protein intake. Fish accounts for 20 percent of animal-derived protein in Low-Income Food Deficit countries, compared to 13 percent in industrialised countries .

Exploitation of West Africa's fish resources by European Union , Russian and Asian fleets "increased sixfold" between the 1960s and 1990s, a United Nations report noted. "Much of the catch is exported or shipped directly to Europe, and compensation for access is often low compared to the value of the landed fish." Fisheries access agreements, which allow foreign vessels into local fishing grounds, adversely affect fish stocks, reduce domestic artisanal catches, and affect the food security and well-being of coastal West African communities. Many of these agreements came into effect after the countries were pressured to liberalise trade. It has had a negative impact on food consumption , poverty reduction and a long-term impact on livelihoods that has forced local fishers from coastal West Africa to migrate . Senegalese fishers emigrating to Spain claim the reason for leaving their homes is the lack of their traditional fisheries livelihood . Increased exports have lead to a lack of fish in local markets, particularly high-value fish, which has affected prices and led to the substitution of fish for poultry, which was now cheaper than fish. Traditional fish species were being replaced by new types of lower value species.

It would benefit marine ecosystems if our intervention in the seas was reduced, allowing species time to repopulate. With a transfer of emphasis away from marine fishing to fish farming, fish yields could potentially be maintained at sufficiently high levels. The mentality encouraged by capitalism is to strive for profits at the expense of long-term consequences. The warnings raised by the environmentalists and scientists are muffled by the demands of economic exploitation. Following a socialist revolution, the wealth of knowledge and skills held by those who work in the fisheries could be applied to a conservation-based use of sea marine resources. The expertise and technology provided could be acted on, without the constraints of the market.