Illegal fishing 'killing' livelihoods across in West Africa

Combating illegal fishing in Western Africa could generate billions of dollars in extra wealth and create around 300,000 jobs.

This is according to a report released by the Overseas Development Institute, looking at the extent of lost opportunities in the region.

Following the report, Guinea has banned all international fishing activities in its waters, to improve local supplies and to replenish fish stocks.

Speaking to Africanews on the Morning Call, lead author of the document Alfonso Daniels tried to explain why the phenomenon is frequently practiced in the region.

“It’s a kind of a global crisis that’s happening. the issue of Western Africa is that these countries are particularly poor and particularly lack of resources to patrol the waters and the extent of the damage already is huge as i was mentioning half of the fishing resources in most of the coast in Western Africa has already been over-fished, so the crisis is more immediate and the impact of not acting would be also much more immediate people will lose livelihood and possibly migrate to cities or abroad,” he said.

300 000 emplois pourraient découler de la lutte contre la pêche illégale #Afrique de l’Ouest https://t.co/UyrTGSwTkq pic.twitter.com/2RfHdEpx6i

— AfricaProgressPanel (@africaprogress) June 30, 2016

The think-tank institute welcomed Guinea’s decision to ban the practice though local fishermen believe that only the big fishing establishments will benefit from the ban.

The report also recommends regional governments to end illegal fishing and build up fish processing industries and indigenous fishing fleets that could generate about 3.3 billion dollars, eight times the amount they currently raise by selling foreign rights.