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Sierra Leone: Fishes to Enter EU Market Soon
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Concord Times (Freetown)
15 May 2008
Posted to the web 15 May 2008
Joe Jannie
Freetown
It has been revealed that pretty soon the fishes from the territorial waters of Sierra Leone will soon enters the European Union (EU) markets as final documentation are about to be concluded by the two parties.
Director of Fisheries in the Ministry of Marine Resources, Alhaji Mohamed Fuad Sheriff has stated at the just concluded two-day training on building national capacity for negotiating fishing agreement that the final document to grant Sierra Leone permission to export fishes to EU is now with the European Union and that they are expecting that at the end of 2008 country's fishes will be at the EU market.
He said the fishery sector in the country contributes 9.9% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), provides cheap protein, promotes employment, generate revenue for the government, provides income for artisanal fisher folks and food security.
"With the decline in fish catch particularly in the industrialized countries, and the over increasing demand for fish for their markets, the need for negotiating fishing agreement with the developing countries is greater now than before. Within the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission, all but Sierra Leone and the Gambia have not signed a fishing access agreement with the EU," Sheriff said.
He said a carefully designed fishing partnership agreement would help manage fisheries and alleviate poverty among the fishing communities.
"Access agreements have in the past rarely had adequate provision for ensuring sustainable fisheries management or considered protection of the environment .According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a fisheries agreement should only be signed if the fish stocks are not fully utilized or exploited. In most developing countries, there is little or no capacity to monitor their fish stock or to control and enforce bilateral agreement," he said.
Permanent Secretary Ministry of Marine Resources, Paul Sandy who represented the Minister said the idea of fish access agreement came as a result UNCLOS that gave coastal states an exclusive nautical mile within which the coastal states have sovereign rights on fish resources.
"The convention recommends coastal states to authorize catches by third parties for resources they are not able or in a position to exploit. Such agreement are often done through fishing agreements which are documents whereby each of the parties commit for a limited period to mutually provide themselves with goods and services," Sandy said.
He however noted that before the signing of fishing agreement, decision-makers most base their decisions on relevant factors to maximize profit for the countries ,but that they should also be mindful of distortions that fishing agreements could generate in the medium and long term for the country.
Program Manager, Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission, Oscar Balde said member sates of SRFC are weak in capacities to negotiate as compared to their EU partners and others.
"Facing this situation, the SRFC with the partnership of UICN, with WWF and with other partners of the PRMC (Regional Programme of Conservation of the Coastal and Marine Zone in West Africa) set up a plan of strengthening the capacities of negotiation for state members of the sub regional fisheries commission," Balde said.
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"This project is a project to build capacities for fisheries agreement negotiations and it will allow the states members to secure the basis of good practice in negotiation."
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