The government is to call for a Europe-wide system for tracking fish to help cut down on illegal fishing.

Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw and Overseas Development Minister Gareth Thomas say it will make it harder for illegal catches to enter the EU.

The plan, including electronic records of vessels and catches, will be backed by supermarkets and environmental groups at a meeting on Monday.

The ministers will also pledge £15m to help Sierra Leone stop illegal fishing.

Environment groups say the trade deprives poor countries of $9bn (£4.5bn) per year, of which about $1bn relates to African countries.

On track

The tracking system would help regulate fishing by allowing fish to be traced “from the moment they are caught to when they are served on a customer’s plate” – says the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

This would include keeping electronic records of vessels, skippers and fishing grounds, including details of catches, time at sea and onward shipping and of delivery to buyers.

“More than 50% of the world’s fish stocks are exploited to their limits and more than 25% are depleted,” Mr Bradshaw told the BBC News website, “and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major contributor.

“The main victims are poor countries which don’t have the capacity to manage their fisheries.”

He and Mr Thomas will tell the London meeting that combating IUU fishing will boost those countries’ incomes as well as conserving fish stocks.

Last year a major scientific report concluded there would be no sea fisheries left within 50 years if current trends continued; and IUU fishing is the principal factor behind the decline of some species.

Jail terms

A number of systems now exist to monitor, track and certify fish, and the European Union is discussing proposals that could implement such schemes across the region.

A recent study said there would be no viable sea fisheries in 50 years

Also on the table are stronger laws to punish transgressors, modelled on the US Lacey Act, which makes it illegal for any US citizen to engage in any aspect of trade in illegally caught fish. Jail terms of several years have resulted from prosecutions under the act.

Following a recent meeting between fisheries ministers and the European Commission, a commission spokesman said there was “overwhelming support” for such measures within the EU.

Within Britain there is also support from within the industry, with Cliff Morrison, chairman of the seafood group within the UK Food and Drink Federation (FDF), saying: “The issue of IUU fishing is at the forefront of the food processing industry’s agenda.

“The development and implementation of the industry’s code of practice to counteract IUU fishing activities is a major step in addressing this problem.”

The government believes the FDF’s code of practice is a model which the EU could adopt.

No controls

Away from Europe, the government and some environment groups are looking for ways to rein in fishing boats operating under flags of convenience.

The 2005 report Closing the Net, commissioned by the High Seas Task Force, found that more than 17% of the world’s fishing vessels operating in open waters are either registered under flags of convenience or not registered at all.

There are virtually no controls on how these vessels operate.

The report noted that about 1,000 ships appeared to have no authorisation to fish anywhere, yet brought back catches, and asked rhetorically: “Where were they fishing?”

Mr Bradshaw said: “The EU has responsibility, as do a number of countries including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, to get a greater measure of control on flags of convenience.”

The European Commission is aiming to publish its proposals on IUU fishing later this year.

Link to BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Action urged on illegal fishing

UK Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw and Gareth Thomas, the Minister for International Development will meet supermarkets including Tesco and Marks & Spencer to champion measures designed to deter illegal fishing and boost consumer confidence.

(Media-Newswire.com) – A new system to beat illegal fishing around the world by tracking fish from the moment they are caught to when they arrive on consumers’ plates will get the backing of the UK Government today ( 30 April ).
UK Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw and Gareth Thomas, the Minister for International Development will meet supermarkets including Tesco and Marks & Spencer to champion measures designed to deter illegal fishing and boost consumer confidence.
The Ministers will also announce a £15 million scheme to help fishermen in Sierra Leone stamp out illegal fishing, including setting up a tracing scheme that will track fish being exported to the EU.
Illegal fishing is a major form of organised crime that deprives often very poor communities, of up to $9 billion in lost income every year – $1 billion of which is the loss to Africa.
Gareth Thomas, UK Development Minister, said:
“Every year billions of dollars are snatched away from poor people around the world that could be used to help make poverty history. One way of stopping this is to have an EU wide tracking system that protects poor fishermen and reassures UK consumers that the fish they buy from the supermarket freezer or fish and chip shop has been caught fairly and responsibly.
“It would build business confidence, lead to companies rushing to work with poor communities and help fishermen reap the benefits of their hard work.”
Ben Bradshaw, UK Fisheries Minister, said:
“Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a huge problem. It destroys fish stocks and marine biodiversity, it depresses the market in legally caught fish, and drives legitimate fishermen out of business.
“It’s driven by sophisticated criminal gangs who don’t care what or who they damage in the pursuit of easy cash. It’s a crime that should concern the world, because it plunders a world resource.
“We all have a responsibility and a duty to make sure there is adequate governance and enforcement in place to stop illegal fishing and to block illegal produce entering the food chain. New laws will target not only fishermen but processors and importers who trade in illegal fish.”
David Audley, President of the group that represents 10,000 fish and chip shop owners in the UK, said:
“The NFFF [National Federation of Fish Friers] strongly advise all fryers to use fish from sustainable sources to ensure the British public can continue to enjoy their favourite fish and chips. Any effective measures the EU propose to stop illegal fishing have our wholehearted support.”
At the meeting of representatives from several African Governments, British food processors and supermarkets including Tesco and Marks and Spencer’s the Ministers will highlight the importance of including a fish monitoring system in new European legislation currently being drafted.
They will say that new EU regulations should take account of successful initiatives already being used by British businesses such as members of the UK Food and Drink Federation ( FDF ). The UK Government has been working with the FDF, which has a voluntary code of practice for tracking fish imports, to influence EU policy makers so they adopt a tracing system that is workable, meets the needs of fishermen and stops criminals selling on illegally caught fish to the EU. The FDF code of practice has been endorsed by WWF Europe.
Cliff Morrison, Chairman of the Seafood Group, UK Food and Drink Federation, said:
“The issue of illegal, unregulated and unreported ( IUU ) fishing is at the forefront of the food processing industry’s agenda. The development and implementation of the industry’s code of practice to counteract IUU fishing activities is a major step in addressing this problem.”
An effective traceability system to responsibly source tuna, such as that used by FDF members, currently allows them to trace fish back to the boat, whilst developing a supply chain verification system that uses electronic systems throughout the chain. In addition to the traceability systems, regular technical audits of the whole chain will continue to validate the process.
The proposed EU regulations are intended to close a gap in current EU laws and prevent illegally caught fish entering member states. Draft legislation is expected to be published by the summer of 2007.
Notes to Editors
1. The Grand Theft Oceans event will take place in the Atlee Room of Portcullis House from 14:30-16:30 on Monday 30 April 2007. The event will be on camera and media will have an opportunity to put questions to both Ministers. Attendance is by invitation only.
2. Representatives from the following groups are expected to attend: the Food and Drink Federation, Tesco, Marks & Spence, Birdseye, the Government of Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Global Witness, WWF and the Environmental Justice Foundation.
3. As part of a new push by the UK to address these problems on the ground, Minister Thomas will announce £15 million to help to the Government of Sierra Leone improve the management of its fisheries and stop illegal fishing. He will also announce £600,000 in support for southern Africa through Namibia to improve regional efforts against fish piracy. Establishing tracing schemes to track fish exported to the EU market from African countries is likely to play a key role in helping these countries booth access our markets and overcome the scourge of pirate fishing.
4. Britain will also work with Australia, New Zealand and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in designing a new global data base on fishing vessels. This will complement the tracing system and give producers and importers a new means of identifying vessels likely to have been involved in fishing illegally.
5. African exports of fish products are currently worth $3.2 billion a year – 5% of world exports of around $60 billion. They could be much higher if illegal fishing was effectively tackled. Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea between them lose $150 million every year through pirate fishing.
6. To find out more about what the Food and Drink Federation is doing to track fish coming into the UK market please contact Christine Welberry, Media Relations Manager, Food and Drink Federation, Tel: 020 7420 7131, Christine.Welberry@fdf.org.uk
7. For further information on what the UK is doing to deter illegal fishing please contact:
visit http://www.dfid.gov.uk Or visit http://www.defra.gov.uk

Link to Media-Newswire.com – Press Release Distribution – PR Agency

Meriam Samu travels more than 30km every morning to buy the fresh catch of the day from local fishermen in the western part of the capital, Freetown. But these days there are fewer and fewer fish for her to choose from.

“I have been doing this business for several years. Before we had stable prices for fish at Leones 3,000 [US$1.00] per 5kg carton, but now the retail prices are between Leones 5,000 [$1.75] to Leones 15,000 [$5.00],” said Samu, 43.

As a result, it is more difficult for her earn money at the busy Kroo Town Road market as the mackerel, snapper and other fish are becoming more difficult for the average Sierra Leonean to afford. Samu, like the fishermen themselves, blames foreign trawlers for the depletion of Sierra Leone’s fish stocks.

“We cannot rely on the fishing vessels because they do not go to sea every day, but the fishermen do and I am afraid that when the canoe men decide to stop fishing how will our people eat fish? Sierra Leoneans should not be crying because of high fish prices because fish should be in abundance here,” she said.

Fish generally have been a cheap and easily available source of protein for Sierra Leoneans, who are amongst the poorest people in the world. Recovering from a decade-long civil war, livelihoods are difficult to sustain and joblessness is rampant. About 70 percent of the country’s 5.3 million people live below the poverty line and 26 percent are considered extremely poor, according to the United Nations.

“What we’re seeing is local fishing communities repeatedly telling us their ability to catch fish is declining, the size of their catch is declining and the size of the fish is declining,” said Steven Trent, executive director of the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), an independent pressure group for environmental security and human rights.

Depleted resource

About 80,000 make their living through fishing in Sierra Leone, according to the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources. The country loses an estimated $29 million annually to illegal and unregulated fishing, and its neighbours Guinea and Liberia lose about $110 million and $10 million respectively, according to EJF.

Musa Sankoh, a fisherman for the past decade, said trawlers have especially been a problem since 2006. As a result, he said, many fishermen fear entering the high seas to cast their nets, which are their only means of livelihood, so they stay closer to shore where there are fewer fish.

“Now things are becoming very difficult for us fisherman at sea where the foreign trawlers normally cut our nets with impunity and this is slowing down our efforts to supply more fish for the locals,” said Sankoh.

Each canoe barely generates $33 per day, compared to up to $66 in previous years, he said. The Kingtom wharf in Freetown shows the evidence of discouragement. On any given day dozens of abandoned canoes rest idle on the beach – the fishermen have sought a living elsewhere.

Samuel Lewallie, sitting in the canoe he made 10 years ago, continues to fish but his diminishing earnings are feeding his anger toward the government.

“We are paying license fees to the government the same as the trawlers, but the government seems to favour those industrial people more than us,” he said. “We are Sierra Leoneans and this is our home, foreign merchants cannot have more rights than us.”

Rudolph Murray, an agent for a Chinese trawler operating off Sierra Leone, says the fishermen’s complaints hold little weight.

“They are just afraid because we have the capacity to grab more fish than them,” he said. “This is competitive business.”

Securing the future

The government has granted fishing rights to Egyptian, Chinese and Russian trawlers, according to the Fisheries Ministry. Winston Gbondo, the assistant director for fisheries, denied that foreign vessels received preferential treatment. He said the government had set up an “insured exclusive zone” for local fishermen and that trawlers entering the area would be fined $30,000.

“The trawlers have their own operating zone, but the problems we have had is the surveillance of the sea to ensure that trawlers do not encroach into this zone,” he said. “The ministry does not have the logistical capacity to carry out the surveillance. We have given this function to the navy.”

Despite these efforts enforcement is problematic, Trent said, in part because in countries where wages are poor corruption can thwart efforts to implement laws.

The problem here, as with many developing states, you have extreme resource constraints,” said Trent of EJF. “It’s very difficult to monitor, to control and enforce the law. It is almost impossible for countries like Sierra Leone to deal with this without concerted efforts internationally.”

He said EJF backed efforts to abolish flags and ports of convenience so it is easier to track vessels. The organisation also supports improving control and surveillance assistance to developing countries and putting more of the burden on markets where the pirated fish is consumed, such as in the European Union. If measures are not taken, he said, fish stocks could collapse.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Link to IRIN News

In the minutes before dawn, the only other presence on the streets is a cloud of hungry mosquitoes.

After a 20-minute crawl over tyre-busting rocks and around dozing dogs, the truck pulls up on the beach at the village of Goderich, where a group of fishermen wait for its precious cargo.

Children wandering on the streets repeat the words painted on the side of the van like a mantra: “Ice Ice Baby”.

Captured market

Every morning the ice factory – named after US rapper Vanilla Ice’s popular tune – transports up to 200 bags of freshly-flaked ice straight from the factory in Freetown to the fishermen at Goderich.

The ice sells wholesale for 15,000 leones ($6; £3) per bag, and delivery is free and right to the shore.

Not only has the company captured the imagination of nearby residents, it has also captured the wallets and hopes of local fishermen.

“Last season the fishermen struggled with ice because there wasn’t enough,” says agent Nabi Youla.

“No boat strains for ice now.”

Keeping it fresh

About 800 boats are anchored at Goderich, and young fishermen carry the 28kg ice bags on their heads out to brightly-painted wooden skiffs, emblazoned with requests to God to protect them at sea.

he waters around Sierra Leone are some of the richest in the world, teeming with snapper, grouper and barracuda, as well as shrimp and lobster.

But a catch is only valuable for as long as it stays fresh.

“At times you catch a lot, sometime you come back with nothing,” says fisherman Eldred Williams who buys six or seven bags of ice every time he goes out..

“But without ice the fish would spoil.”

Sustainable development

The mass deliveries mean the fishermen can stay longer at sea, saving on fuel costs for their engines, travel further afield to chase large shoals, and earn a much better price for a fresh catch rather than sell the fish to be smoked.

“Before, they would go in the morning and come back in the evening if they couldn’t get ice,” says Marie Garber, general manager and co-owner of Ice Ice Baby.

“Now they go for three or four days and they can preserve their catch at sea with our ice.”

Born and raised in Sierra Leone, Ms Garber went to Canada in her late teens.

She returned for good in 1995, determined to bring put some of her self-taught business skills to good use in a country that is still struggling to return to normal, five years after a brutal civil war that lasted 11 years.

After receiving enormous amounts of international aid that account for half the government budget, and following recent debt relief, some say the country is becoming dangerously accustomed to external support with few incentives to spur the private sector.

Ice Ice Baby shows that, despite the hindrances, it is possible for a small local business to spot a gap in the market, turn a profit, and to support development.

“What we found is that even after the additional cost of ice, the income of fishermen is doubled,” says Tom Cairnes, partner of the $5m Sierra Investment Fund, which has done research into the business and is preparing to make private equity investments in Sierra Leone in April.

“That has a number of strong development impact,” he says, insisting it can help pay for school fees and healthcare.

“To me that’s what sustainable development is about, rather than lots of handouts and aid.

“Even poor Sierra Leonean fishermen have the ability to deliver economic growth themselves.”

Capital investment

Ask the fishermen on the shore, however, and they still complain that the ice is too expensive and melts too quickly.

Ice Ice Baby is all too aware of the problems.

Since dry ice lasts longer, the firm needs a blast freezer.

It has a $200,000 shopping list to import such a machine and other equipment to expand the capacity and quality to meet growing demand.

Coca-Cola has signed a three-month trial contract to supply its agents with ice daily, while Senegalese fishermen regularly stop off at Lumley beach in the capital to pick up their share of the cold stuff.

Back to the wall

On a good day, the company can sell enough ice to take home 8m leones. 

The company also produces up to 15 tonnes a month of ice cubes made from filtered water, sold for 3,500 leones a 3.5kg bag.

These are snapped up by local hotels, beach bars, restaurants and supermarkets – all keen to supply the thirsty gullets of well-to-do Sierra Leoneans and the large numbers of expatriate development workers and UN staff stationed in Sierra Leone with ice-cold beers and soft drinks.

It wasn’t always like this.

Ice Ice Baby opened its doors in August 2006 to utter disaster.

It was the middle of the rainy season, when fishermen stay onshore and so do not need ice.

The business lost 160m leone in its first three months.

But in such a backs-to-the-wall business, both Ms Garber and her half-Sierra Leonean, half-Lebanese business partner Rhoda Joseph had sunk everything they had into the firm.

They spent more than $150,000 alone on start-up costs, including building the factory from scratch.

Those with a weaker stomach might have decided to cut their losses, but here there was no option.

“I never thought about closing,” says Ms Garber.

“This business is my life savings.”

No help from government

In the face of the calls for lower prices, Ms Garber would love to oblige.

But Freetown remains a city without electricity.

Residents consider themselves lucky if they get power from the National Power Authority once every 10 days.

Like many companies, Ice Ice Baby has to run a generator 24 hours a day. The 150 gallons of diesel required to keep the business functioning costs £388 a day at current prices.

With bank loans attracting interest rates of between 24% and 28%, and with no tax breaks or start-up grants from the government, such expenses simply have to be passed on to customers.

“We’ve created jobs and contributed to the community but we don’t even get anything as basic as light from the government,” says Ms Garber, who feels more could be done to support entrepreneurs.

“A lot of Sierra Leoneans have money but they take their money out of the country.

“You can’t really blame them when you look at the help you get from government here.”

Link to BBC NEWS | Business | Sierra Leone’s cool entrepreneurs

Following up on yesterday’s post is an interesting story that relates to the title.  Two weeks ago was Ilona’s birthday, and a group of us got together for dinner, bowling, and karaoke.  Thankfully the dinner and the bowling were at two separate venues.

Upon arriving at the bowling alley or “Alley-gators” as it is called, we were quickly divided into two teams.  I ended up on Darah’s team, along with a “jordy” named “Tim”.   “Tim” is in the British Armed Forces, and in between frames we got to talking about his service.  He just finished his stint in Sierra Leone, and was visiting Uganda before returning back home to England (or “gawn ‘om in his Newcastle accent). Where he was stationed in Sierra Leone was also the same military post as American soldiers.  The British Armed Forces, specifically him, was there to train soldiers in logistics, ranging from shipping materials, to tracking gas mileage, to tracking hours that soldiers have worked.  Basic infrastructure needs of any military.

Remember, Sierra Leone is one of the top three international diamond-exporting countries in the world.   The BAF is there in an attempt to kind of reconcile for past mistakes, win over the “hearts and minds” (BAF soldiers are not allowed to wear sunglasses, and have to travel with the car windows rolled down), and help stabilize the military through training and goods.  But when “Tim” arrived he could not believe the state of disarray the military was in.  Soldiers did not have complete uniforms, could not arrive on time for roll call due to living one to two hours away, and only having enough weaponry to cover one BAF unit for an entire country.  Needless to say it was a learning experience for him and the Sierra Leone soldiers.  He literally had to teach his men how to use a photocopying machine because they had never seen one before.  There are no computers, except donated ones, and therefore everything is still hand-written like the BAF did 40 years ago.

He also said that the Americans had donated three Coast Guard boats (I think it was coast guard, I had a couple drinks in me) to patrol the coasts to make sure that commercial fisherman were not violating the laws that prevent them from coming too close to shore.  Problem is, the military has no money to buy fuel to put into the boats, so they can only afford to have one boat patrolling 90% of Sierra Leone’s coast.  From my best guess-timation, I think that the coast of Maine is just a little bigger than Sierra Leone.  As you can imagine, having one boat to patrol “Maine” makes it pretty easy for the Chinese commercial fisherman to violate these international trade laws. 

What do Chinese fishermen have to do with me? You ask yourself.  Well, let’s try to think of this on a global scale.  Down in Maine the fishermen community is well regulated and diligent about their catches.  Some of it is sold locally, but I would bet the good money is selling fish internationally, even if it is through a middleman. 

Then there are the Chinese who are literally fishing the sea dry, violating international law, and driving the prices of fish down due to the fact that they are increasing the supply.  So in order to survive, not make a profit, our Maine fisherman now has to go farther and farther offshore, which therefore increases the danger, to find more fish to compete with the illegal Chinese fish.  And if he doesn’t have a good catch, then he has less money to support his family, and less money to pay into the federal and state governments.  And since Maine doesn’t have enough state tax money coming in because the Chinese are killing the fishing industry, the state government then increases the taxes on gasoline and tolls.  So now Maine, the self-proclaimed “vacationland”, is actually now more expensive for you to go to than the Cape.  So you can choose to go to Maine, and spend more time in fuel, accommodation, and traffic-time, or spend the same amount of money and go to the Cape. 

Great news for the Cape right?  Except the Cape has a fisherman on it as well.  So instead of increasing the tolls, because there aren’t any yet, you end up paying more for the little things, like a large pizza and a pitcher of beer, than you would back in Boston or NYC, because the local economy needs to make up the deficit of money from the fishing industry.

So maybe you skip vacation this year, and spend the summer sweltering in your two-bed apartment in Beacon Hill.  Only problem is, so did 300,000 other people.  So now the Cape is looking at a budget deficit because they didn’t have the state taxes coming in due to the reduced number of summer employees.  Due to that reduced deficit, towns on the Cape have to make a budget decision on whether or not to pay the teachers, the police, or an environmental bill to keep the local oceans clean for swimming.  Hey, that’s their problem not mine right? 

Wrong.  Because you can’t NOT pay the teachers or the police or keep the water clean.

Don’t pay the teachers; you get kids in juvy and dropping out of school because they are 1 out of 35 kids in a class and don’t receive any attention, and guess who pays for the juvenile justice system?  You do. 

Don’t pay the police, crime may increase, leading to an increase in insurance rates, therefore Cape locals have less money to spend in the local economy because they are too worried about a tank of gas never mind a new pair of sneakers.  This further reduces the number of businesses on the Cape, and even further depleting the tax-base. 

And if you don’t clean the ocean, then tourists won’t come because what’s the fun in going to the ocean if you can’t swim in it?  No tourists, no jobs, no taxes.  Ouch.

So now it is your tax dollars that their Congressmen and State Representatives are going to ask to “borrow” in order to keep things afloat on the Cape until next year, where they are predicting a BIG tourist season for 2008.  So now your $1 that was going to plow, pave, and maintain Beacon St is only 50 cents, and therefore doesn’t receive the attention it needs. Due to the lack of funding, the plowing is reduced and car accidents in the winter increase, therefore increasing YOUR insurance rate even if you never got into an accident.

So while some politicians love to ramble on about how we need to only worry about issues at home, we actually do need to worry about issues abroad.  Since moving to Uganda I’ve become a true believer in the free-market economy.  Thing is, that in order for the global free-market economy to be fair it needs to be enforced.  And some people don’t give a sh-t about the rules, and it is screwing up our lives back home.

Never mind the poor Sierra Leone fisherman who used to catch enough fish to feed and support his family (i.e. pay for a kid to go to school), but can longer catch a fish bigger than his forearm anymore because his carved-out tree canoe cannot compete with international fishing trawlers.  So he now faces a choice, does he sell the fish and hope for money to buy his family dinner maize and bananas again, or does he keep it and give his kids the protein they need to grow.  Because if the kids are in poor health, they are not going to go to school, and if they don’t go to the school they’re not learning, and if they’re not learning they are dropping out and living home unemployed. If he is unemployed then he is not contributing to the growth of the tax base and GDP, further preventing the country from paying back loans given to them by the Chinese. 

Kind of messed up huh?

Link to How fishing in Sierra Leone can screw up the Cape « Darah and William’s latest from Uganda

FREETOWN, Feb 23 (Reuters) – When Beijing donated a long-range patrol boat to Sierra Leone’s navy, little did it realise the vessel’s first catch would be Chinese fishermen poaching off the West African coast.

Navy officers fired their first shots in anger since the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war to apprehend the Chinese trawler this week, sending rifle volleys across its bow after a high-speed ocean chase lasting an hour, a senior commander said.

“When they saw us coming they decided to weigh up their nets and flee, so we pursued them,” the patrol boat’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Sallieu Kanu, told Reuters late on Thursday. “That is a gross violation of international law.”

Like other West African nations, the poverty-stricken former British colony is battling to safeguard its dwindling fish stocks, the cheapest source of protein for its 5 million people who are still recovering from the effects of a 1991-2002 war.

West Africa’s shores are home to some of the world’s largest concentrations of fish, crustaceans and molluscs, but its coastal communities are among the poorest, relying on antiquated fishing methods which are no match for industrial rivals.

Fleets of trawlers, many of them Chinese and Korean, spend weeks plying the seas off the Atlantic coast, taking advantage of lax policing to land catches of shrimp, barracuda, lobster, snapper and others worth up to $10,000 a day per boat.

Greenpeace says pirate fishing is worth between $4 billion and $9 billion a year and accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s total catch. Illegal fishing strips about $1 billion worth of fish from sub-Saharan African waters alone each year.

LOSING BATTLE

The 35-metre Chinese trawler, named Lian Run 27, ignored repeated commands to stop when it was spotted with three other Chinese fishing vessels three miles from land, contravening an exclusion zone that extends five miles, Kanu said.

At this range boats take young and breeding fish out of the water, and rip through the nets of local fishermen, who ply the muddy waters in home-made canoes dug out of tree trunks. The captured vessel is now anchored off the coastal capital Freetown under armed guard, with its mixed Chinese and Sierra Leonean crew still aboard. A fine of up to $30,000 must be paid to the Ministry of Fisheries before the boat is released.

While foreign trawlers stand to profit from the high-stakes fishing racket, Sierra Leone’s cash-strapped navy finds it hard to keep pirates at bay. The patrol boat donated by the Chinese is the only such long-range vessel it owns.

“We can’t afford to go to sea throughout the month,” Kanu said. “We consume 4,000 gallons of fuel a month to keep our boats on the sea. We need twice that and two more vessels to patrol the coast effectively.”

He said the last few months had seen a dramatic increase in night-time sightings of trawlers. The first time he chased down a Korean vessel, he was offered a $10,000 bribe to turn a blind eye, he added.

Link to Reuters AlertNet – FEATURE-Sierra Leone navy shoot to catch Chinese fishermen

A Norwegian Fishing Trawler, owned by John Jensen (75) who also serves as the Captain of the Boat ‘Senjafjell’, on Thursday 15th February 2007, docked safely at the Government Wharf Bay in Freetown.

The Owner and Captain of the boat, Mr. Jensen with a Crew member onboard where received by the Executives of their Agents led by Mr. Saio Kamara the Director of the ‘Safaosma International Fishing Company’ at Rawdon Street, in Freetown.

The Fishing Boat with over 300 Fishing Gears spent about seven days on the high seas from their Operating Base in Las Palmas, Spain, to Sierra Leone.

Mr. Saio Kamara, of the Safaosma International Fishing Company, speaking in an interview with Awareness Times at the Government Wharf, said that, he was a Sierra Leonean who had stayed in Europe for a number of years, and who commands a wealth of knowledge as a seafarer.

He explained that whilst in Las Palmas, Spain, he met with the owner of the ‘Senjafjell’ Boat Mr. John Jensen, whom he said has love for Sierra Leone because of his interactions with other Sierra Leoneans.

Kamara revealed that he persuaded John Jensen to come to Freetown and invest in the fishing industry. He also stated that the reason for him to Cater for Investors to come to Sierra Leone is because he looks at himself as owing an obligation to his own homeland after spent so many years developing other countries in the Diaspora.

Jensen’s investment in the Fishing Industry according to Kamara will provide employment for meaningful Sierra Leoneans so as to take care of their Families.

He said the coming in of Mr. John Jensen was a blessing for Sierra Leone as Jensen had a lot of contacts and upon his return to Las Palmas in Spain, he was sure to lobby other Investors to come to Sierra Leone.

John Jensen in an interview said, he is very much comfortable with the local weather which he said is much to his taste. He also assured of his love for Sierra Leone and stated that he is willing to work with the people of Sierra Leone. He also said he was not only here to make profit in the Country but will be selling Sierra Leone out to other Potential Investors in Europe and Elsewhere so there will be enough Employment for the People.

“I love this country and your people and I am going to do my best to help Saio Kamara bring more development to Sierra Leone.” Jensen smilingly assured.

Link to NORWEGIAN FISHING BOAT DOCKS IN SIERRA LEONE: Sierra Leone News