Search

Globally, marine fisheries exhibit a great spatial and temporal diversity in the use of fishing gear. However, the development and use of fishing gear for industrial marine fisheries has not been well understood at a global level. Here, we assign all globally reconstructed fisheries catches of the Sea Around Us to a specific gear type. This report documents the results of this gear assignment for each individual fishing country of the Sea Around Us. Globally, we found that bottom trawls and purse seines account for the majority of all gears used, especially when small-scale gears are excluded. We also derive approximate gear type use for small-scale fisheries via an indirect, regionally representative approach. This approach made use of the largest artisanal fishing countries in each region of the world, and assigned the remaining artisanal catches to these countries assuming they are representative of the broader region. The major artisanal gear types worldwide were gillnets and various types of line gear. Changes in gear use over time are presented globally, with all data freely available at www.seaaroundus.org.

In terms of human dimensions, illegal fishing in West Africa has several far-ranging implications for small-scale fishers and communities.

Fisheries provide food for a large number of people all over the world. In West Africa, fish is a major source of animal protein and millions of people depend on it, being the cheapest and more accessible animal protein resource for local populations. The contribution of West African fisheries to food security is often undermined. Moreover, the low official fish consumption rate presented by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (14.7 kg per capita, 1999-2006) does not reflect a reality where significant catches are unreported and therefore under-estimated in official statistics. More comprehensive catch data reported herein reveal that annual fish consumption can be as high as 88 kg per capita in some coastal communities of West Africa, which demonstrates the importance of fish to their food security. Fisheries also provide jobs and incomes, further increasing food security and allowing people to purchase high calorie staples. This report presents a historical perspective of fisheries and a more realistic estimate of fisheries removals from the exclusive economic zones of six Northwest African countries (Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Cape Verde and Guinea). The rationale behind this work negates zero as a valid estimate for existing large-scale and small-scale fishing sector catches. The reconstructed catches include both domestic and foreign fisheries extractions, providing higher resolution catch data for six decades. Through a comprehensive review of the literature and local expert knowledge, the authors have reduced the level of uncertainty related to the catch reconstruction methods. As such, the results in this contribution provide a more realistic baseline, not only for determining future trends of fisheries but for estimating the sustainable surplus that can be accessed by distant-waters fleets in these waters. I therefore commend the authors for this important contribution.

The development trajectory upon which these West African countries found themselves when they became independent was strongly shaped by this colonialism, which was harsh and difficult to get rid of - particularly for the ex-Portuguese colonies. Traces of colonialism are thus felt at all levels, notably where the struggle for political and economic ‘agency’ after formal independence plunged these countries into perennial political instability (e.g., Guinea Bissau), or long and murderous civil wars and/or wars over natural resources (e.g., Angola, Congo ex-Zaire). Some other countries transited smoothly into neo-colonies, where development and research institutions fail to play their nation-building role, as they serve mainly to maintain previous colonial ties. This has resulted, particularly in the former French colonies, in a general reluctance to transfer knowledge to local institutions. Neo-colonial ties are also illustrated through the profile of exploitation of natural resources, notably fish stocks, to which the former colonial powers often maintains a privileged access. As a result, West African countries did not develop truly national industrial fisheries, which would have formed an obstacle to the foreign industrial fleets that gradually invaded their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). As a consequence, in most of their coastal areas, foreign vessels and the stock depletions they cause(d) hinder the development of the artisanal and local industrial fisheries. This has led to growing tensions, which are only partly alleviated by foreign fleets being reflagged to the countries in whose waters they operate, and landing the low-value part of their catch locally. The resolution of these tensions, increased by growing demands for fish by both consumers in Western Europe and East Asia, and the inhabitants of West African countries, will determine whether issues of food security will prevail over the power of international markets. This is the reason why we contrast, for each country, the catches of smallscale fisheries, which mostly enter the local economies, and those of industrial (mostly foreign) fisheries, which tend to hinder their development.

This thesis provides evidence for why more complete fisheries catch estimates should be included in fisheries assessments. West African fisheries suffer over-exploitation, illegal fishing and overcapacity. Certainly, overlooking small-scale sectors and attributing “zero” to existing gaps do not improve the situation. Under-reporting masks fisheries real trends and overcapacity, contributing to intensifying over-exploitation, whose impacts, along with the effects of climate change, could be disastrous. My research focuses on the fisheries of the Western part of the African continent. I begin by presenting methods to estimate the “invisible” catch through the case study of Senegal. I designed this “catch reconstruction” to illustrate the effects of illegal fishing on small-scale fisheries whose geographical range has increased significantly. I used reconstructed data for small-scale fisheries to quantify their contribution to employment and the economy, their profitability and the evolution of fisher’s income as compared to the national poverty line. I found that people increasingly rely on fisheries despite their low income, now dangerously close to the poverty line. Foreign fisheries also contribute to generating income, but also to income losses. I compare the performance of fisheries by China and Europe in West Africa in terms of reporting, illegal fishing and compensation. It appears that despite the inherent policy differences between China and Europe in terms of their Distant Water Fleet (DWF) operations, they both under-reported catches, fished illegally and undercompensated for fishing agreements. They also both contribute to reducing the biomass of fish available to local fishers, and hence to a reduction fishing opportunities and incomes. Fish stocks, and therefore, fisheries are also affected by climate change. I examine these effects and overlap them with some fisheries socio-economic indicators and found that artisanal fishers were more likely to “follow the fish” by expanding their fishing range, while industrial fishers seem to have more flexible as their range of adaptation strategies appears to be wider. In summary, the work on West African fisheries refutes the myth of “lack of data”, and I show that sufficient data exist to analyze the effects of current fisheries policy, and by implication, to formulate alternatives.