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West Africa Regional Fisheries ProgramWest Africa Regional Fisheries ProgramLessons for Reducing IUU FishingLessons for Reducing IUU Fishing

John VirdinJohn VirdinSr. Natural Resource Management SpecialistSr. Natural Resource Management SpecialistEnvironment Department, The World BankEnvironment Department, The World Bank

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West Africa Regional Fisheries ProgramWest Africa Regional Fisheries Program

West AfricaWest Africa’’s Valuable Fishs Valuable Fish……..

1) Over 1.6 million tons fish caught annually – est. wholesale value $3 billion

2) Almost 10% GDP in Guinea‐Bissau and Sierra Leone

3) Over 30% export revenues in Mauritania and Senegal

4) 10 to 30% of public revenues in Mauritania and Guinea‐Bissau

5) Over 3 million people directly and indirectly employed

6) Provides up to 50% animal protein intake for several countries

I’ve been asked to talk about the West Africa Regional Fisheries Program, and some of the lessons learned thus far in efforts to combat IUU

To give a bit of background as to why Governments in West Africa, from Mauritania down to Ghana, have asked us to invest so heavily in their fisheries – about 5 or 6 years ago this was a topic that wasn’t even coming up in conversations with Ministries of Finance about key needs for economic growth and poverty reduction.

But a couple of countries were worried if they were getting good deals in foreign agreements to access their fish stocks, and asked the World Bank to do a little analytical work together with them.

And what everyone found I think really surprised us – looking first at Guinea‐Bissau, then at Senegal, and slowly up and down the coast, just how significant this natural resource was for the countries, and what a big role it could play in the countries’economies – if the fish stocks were rebuilt.

So, it was clear that West Africa’s fish resources were a valuable natural asset for the region, and a missed opportunity.

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West AfricaWest Africa’’s fisheries are s fisheries are heavily underperforming due heavily underperforming due to poor governanceto poor governance

High levels of IUU fishing a High levels of IUU fishing a symptom of weak symptom of weak governance in many countriesgovernance in many countries

Impossible to capture the Impossible to capture the potential of West Africapotential of West Africa’’s s fisheries without governance fisheries without governance reforms, and with continued reforms, and with continued levels of IUU fishinglevels of IUU fishing


……..a missed opportunity?a missed opportunity?

Sierra LeoneIUU Catch = 35% legal Catch

Guinea‐BissauIUU Catch = 40% legal Catch

Many of the region’s most valuable fish stocks

overexploited

This opportunity was being missed in almost every country up and down the coast –not because there weren’t enough boats, or roads, or ports, or different types of gear, etc., but because the use of these resources was practically ungoverned in many instances – so that the fisheries were often de facto open access resources, where the stocks were being heavily overexploited and economic returns were dwindling at the same time.

A major symptom of this problem was massive levels of illegal or IUU fishing. Many of the countries simply didn’t have the capacity to control what was happening in their waters, and govern the use of these resources sustainably or profitably for their economies.

We did some rough calculations of the wholesale value of the fish caught in the region’s waters, and then the actual value added to the local economies, and you could see that much of the value of this resource was leaving the region, and a large chunk of it going to IUU operations. In some countries, the amount of fish caught illegally was almost as much as what was caught legally.

So because of failure to govern the use of the resources well, most of the stocks were declining, and what value was being generated from the fisheries was largely going overseas – a lot of it via IUU fishing.

The bottom line was that everyone believed the fish stocks could be rebuilt if governance was reformed and this was a bankable proposition and one with a lot of

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A Program of 9 countries – from Mauritania to Ghana

Began end 2009 – Countries join when ready

Cape Verde, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone started early 2010 –total of US$67 million

Investments in each country in: governance reforms, reducing IUU, increased local value added

Roughly 1/3 of funds to combat IUU fishing


Capturing the opportunityCapturing the opportunity

So for these reasons, the Governments of the countries from Mauritania down to Ghana, decided to launch the West Africa Regional Fisheries Program, to invest in reforming governance to better control access to the fisheries, reduce IUU fishing, and increase local value added.

The Program began at the end of 2009, with countries joining on a rolling basis, and Cape Verde, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone starting in early 2010, with a total of some $67 million invested by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility in these four countries over 5 years. Ghana and Guinea‐Bissau have just recently joined.

At least a third of the financing of the Program is to build capacity in each country to address IUU fishing – putting in place the regulatory frameworks, building institutions to deliver better surveillance, strengthening monitoring systems and centers, getting more patrols out on the water and training prosecutors and staff in bringing cases to court.

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2010 to Now: Liberia & Sierra Leone2010 to Now: Liberia & Sierra Leone

Of the 1st 4 countries beginning in 2010 – IUU biggest threat in Liberia and Sierra Leone

Each country has invested between US$5 to 10 M in surveillance:• Legal framework• Coordinated monitoring center• Radio, satellite monitoring systems• Sea patrols• Training, legal prosecution

Common Characteristics:• Command and control governance • No infrastructure for landing, export• Local agents facilitate foreign access

IUU

Of the 1st four countries beginning the program in 2010, it was really in Liberia and Sierra Leone where IUU fishing was the biggest impediment to meaningful governance reform and increased returns from the fisheries.

And the situation in 2009 had some similar characteristics in both cases:

institutions governing access to the fisheries that were based on command‐and‐control, where centralized agencies sold short‐term access in a very non‐transparent manner, with limited information and capacity;

no infrastructure to land and export fish to the EU market which was/is the target, and so a business model of foreign fleets coming to harvest fish for the EU market, and splitting the returns with local agents who would set up charters or joint ventures and purchase access.

In this sort of environment, many fleets and companies with legal access were not necessarily obeying the terms of their licenses, many more did not bother to go through the hassle of obtaining legal access, and the most the countries got out of it were a small slice of profits for local agents and a fraction of the total value of the catch paid as rent or access fees to the Governments.

So both of these countries invested heavily in building capacity to address the problem, starting with regaining control over what was happening in their waters via 5


Liberia & Sierra Leone: ResultsLiberia & Sierra Leone: Results

Liberia December 2010: New Regulations February 2011: New Fisheries

Monitoring Center Inaugurated April 2011: satellite monitoring June 2011: Twin trawlers arrested July 2011: 1st at‐sea arrest of trawler August 2011: Licenses published

Sierra Leone April 2011: New regulations August 2011: New Fisheries Monitoring

Center Operational August 2011: satellite monitoring November 2011: two trawlers arrested

with support from EJF January 2012: third trawler arrested

Of course this is not an overnight process, but the countries have made significant progress in the last one and a half years.

Dr. Braimah can say much more about the experience in Liberia, but I’ll just present briefly a few of the highlights here: in December 2010 the Government passed a comprehensive fisheries regulation, the first legal framework governing the fisheries since the 1970s, and then in February 2011 inaugurated a new fisheries monitoring center that would be used jointly by the Liberian Coast Guard, the Liberian Maritime Authority and the Bureau for National Fisheries, with trained staff operating it 24 hours a day, linked in by radio to licensed vessels and soon with a simple satellite‐based vessel monitoring system. In June I believe the first vessels were arrested at port for pair trawling in the inshore exclusive zone where trawling is prohibited, based on reports from local fishers, and then in July the Liberian Coast Guard, working together with the Bureau for National Fisheries, made its first at‐sea arrest of a large foreign trawler that was fishing in the inshore exclusive zone and was subsequently fined on the order of $175,000. Similarly in August the Government took the important step of publicly disclosing which companies had legal fishing licenses and the revenues paid for those licenses for the first time, and this led to the discovery of a number of fraudulent licenses not in the registry.

In Sierra Leone in April the Government issued new regulations to bring their legal framework into compliance with relevant provisions from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and then subsequently have begun to operate a new fisheries monitoring center staffed with a trained team, with support from the Maritime Wing, the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources and a number of

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Importance of a sound legal framework

Institutional mechanism for coordination

Transparency – e.g. EITI

Eyes and ears – empowering fishing communities

Training, capacity for prosecuting cases

The power of market access – EU’s IUU regulation


Six Lessons LearnedSix Lessons Learned

Essentially: get the ‘software’ right

What are some of the key lessons that have been learned thus far? I don’t want to speak for the Governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone, but I think from our perspective there are at least 6 key lessons that we’ve seen so far in this process of financing increased or new efforts to address IUU fishing.

The first is the importance of a sound legal framework underpinning enforcement of fishing laws and regulations, that is in compliance with international law – the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. There are a number of countries where the legal safeguards were not in place to prevent a foreign vessel from being arrested, and the crew thrown in jail for months without due process, and in contradiction to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty. This was certainly a hindrance for the World Bank to finance public investments to combat IUU fishing, and really one of the first questions to address in a lot of cases.

Secondly, the capacity to tackle IUU fishing was really scattered among different agencies in both countries – one agency would have the responsibility for managing the fisheries and implementing and enforcing laws to that effect, while another would have the responsibility for security at sea and the capacity to actually go out on the water and arrest fishing boats. In both countries, the Governments decided to formally establish a coordination mechanism between these agencies, a joint committee for surveillance of the fisheries, signed by an inter‐agency memorandum of understanding, that states what each agency would contribute in terms of resources and responsibilities towards the common objectives of reducing IUU, within the existing legal framework. This basically mobilized all of the country’s relevant resources towards addressing IUU fishing, and brought a number of

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Next Steps in Liberia and Sierra LeoneNext Steps in Liberia and Sierra Leone

Governance: Governance: Transparent, clear regime for access to the fisheries, with incentives to encourage a longer‐term stake

Institutional Reform: Institutional Reform: Reforming the institutions charged with governing the fisheries, with greater incentives for combating IUU fishing

Purchase of dedicated patrol boats: Purchase of dedicated patrol boats: Focused on coastal shelf fisheries, building a minimum capacity for coastal patrolling

Continued legal training for prosecutionsContinued legal training for prosecutions

Increased regional collaboration:Increased regional collaboration: Compatible vessel monitoring systems

Regional tuna observer programs

Shared offshore patrolling

In terms of next steps, the Governments in both cases are aiming to put in place regulations for a more transparent and secure access regime, together with institutional reforms to fisheries agencies to increase the incentives for combating IUU fishing.

Both Governments are in the process of procuring dedicated patrol boats for the coastal shelf fisheries, and both will continue training in maritime law for local prosecutors.

In the years going forward, as this foundation to combat IUU fishing is in place, I think there will be increased scope for these agencies and institutions to work together and collaborate at the regional level, through compatible vessel monitoring platforms, regional tuna observer programs and potentially shared offshore patrols with larger vessels.

But I think in conclusion, as long as this problem has persisted in these countries, and as much money and resources as have been drained from their economies, we are encouraged by the progress made to date over the last year and a half. I’m optimistic that if the Governments in both countries continue down this path, working together with a wide group of partners and responding to local communities, then it will be possible to see a lot of these vessels leaving these waters and the theft and economic loss from IUU fishing really start to decrease.

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Thank YouThank You

Source: Environmental Justice Foundation, 2005

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West Africa Regional Fisheries Program - Chatham House · West Africa Regional Fisheries Program West ... Ghana, decided to launch the West Africa Regional Fisheries ... What are