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Misanet.com / IPS, 18 March - Mauritania, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau were expected this week to announce drastic action to save one of the world's richest marine environments from overfishing by European Union (EU) and other fishing fleets. Environmentalists say such a move would have been unnecessary had the EU negotiated responsible fisheries agreements. West Africa has suffered "massive overfishing" by EU fishing fleets, with local small fishing boats forced to fish further and further out to sea or to concentrate their activities in sensitive coastal areas, Souleymane Zeba, director of World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) West Africa programme, told journalists Tuesday. Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal, whose fishing agreements with the EU are up for renewal this year, are all taking action to protect fish and marine life off the coast of West Africa. The WWF is working to ensure that agreements signed in 2001 afford better protection for fragile coastal ecosystems. Mauritania is to ban all fishing, except traditional non-motorised fishing by local communities, in the Banc d'Arguin National Park, a 12,000 square km coastal wetland - home to the world's most endangered marine mammal, the monk seal, and over two million migratory water birds. Guinea-Bissau will announce the creation of the Joao Viera/ Poilao National Park - a 500 square km marine protected area in the southern part of the Bijagos Archipelago including Poilao island, the largest green turtle nesting site on the Atlantic coast of Africa. The waters of the archipelago also shelter dolphins, sharks and rays and migratory waterbirds. Senegal is also to announce a project to develop marine protected areas within its territorial waters. - These actions to save fish stocks and marine life are necessary because of years of overfishing by industrial fishing fleets from Europe and elsewhere, said Zeba. He said developing countries were not only looking at compensation for the damage already done by third countries, such as EU member states, but also for a commitment to protect marine biodiversity in future. According to the WWF, fish stocks in the area have been devastated by damaging fishing techniques that have caused a decline in species like dolphins, sharks and turtles. Julie Cator, WWF's European fisheries expert, says the EU is partly to blame, as it subsidises European fleets to overfish off West Africa; an agreement with Mauritania alone costs EU taxpayers 266 million euros (about 240 million dollars). The EU has, however, not carried out relevant environmental impact studies and cash-strapped nations are under pressure to sign agreements, often without taking into account the need to preserve biodiversity, she said. According to the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), 60 per cent of the Earth's commercial fish stocks are overfished. - Agreements should only be negotiated where there is clear evidence that fish stocks are underused by the national fleets and there is a surplus, said Cator, who argued that agreements should take a regional approach and the interests of small-scale local fisherfolk should be protected. These are among the basic principles outlined in the WWF's 127-page 'Handbook for Negotiating Fishing Access Agreements', published in January. The WWF will this year host a series of workshops on how to reach fisheries agreements that promote sustainable development, using the handbook as a starting point for debate. The first workshop will take place in Senegal from 27-28 March. "These principles may seem obvious, but they are not evident in most agreements today," said Cator. The EU currently has fishing rights agreements with 26 countries, 17 of which are in the developing world; not one agreement adequately protects biodiversity, she said. "If developing countries in West Africa can invest precious resources in safeguarding fish stocks, why can't the EU stop overfishing in West African waters?" she asked. According to WWF, some 60 per cent of the poorest people in the least developing countries (LDCs) today live in ecologically fragile region. Some 600,000 people in Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal are directly dependent upon fishing for their incomes, but the stocks are rapidly being depleted, said a WWF expert on development. Migration to the cities and desertification are putting additional and worrying pressure on the coastal areas. While with "one hand the EU aims to alleviate poverty ... on the other hand, it is taking the food away through its fisheries policy," the expert said, calling on the Union to seek greater coherence in its policies. The EU executive Commission is due to release a green paper on its Common Fisheries Policy this month that is expected to place a greater emphasis on sustainable development. In November, the Commission approved a Communication on European development co-operation policy in fisheries and aquaculture that stressed the importance of this sector for many developing countries. It described how the EU could contribute to sustainable management and development of aquatic resources for the benefit of the poorest people in the developing countries in order to help alleviate their poverty. Poverty reduction is the main objective of the Community's development activities and the Commission has said adoption of the Communication ties in with the EU executive's commitment to improve consistency between development policy and other Community policies, such as fisheries and trade. Poul Nielson, the EU Commissioner for development co-operation and humanitarian aid, described the Communication as an important document. "At a time when the European Union is reviewing its entire development aid policy, the Commission wishes to launch a major examination of this sector (fisheries), which is of vital economic and social importance to the developing countries and also to Europe," he said. - In proposing the adoption of a number of guidelines for development, trade, society and environment in the context of fisheries, the Communication is making a contribution to this examination, Nilson said.
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