The Vice President, Alhaji Dr Mahammudu Bawumia, has stressed the need for the present generation to leave behind a legacy of a thriving, sustainable and vibrant blue economy for generations to come.
According to him, developing and sustaining a blue economy was not just an economic importance, but also a moral imperative as well.
"We are the stewards of our ocean entrusted with their preservation for future generations. Other countries like the United States of America have a successful blue economy and I believe that Ghana has a great future and we can get there through hard work and dedication. It is possible!" he emphasised.
Dr Bawumia made the call when he addressed the opening of the 10th Conference on Fisheries and Coastal Environment organised by the Centre for Coastal Management, University of Cape Coast in Accra yesterday.
The three-day conference is on the theme: "Inclusive blue economy in Africa: Towards sustainable transformation of the marine environment" and being attended by stakeholders from academia, development partners, civil society organisations, fisher groups and the media.
Key among the topics for discussion include: "World Bank's Blue Economy Strategy", "Sustainable Fisheries Resources Management in Ghana" and "Coastal processes, infrastructure and Sediments Dynamics".
The Vice President said Ghana's situation along the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Coast had been a tremendous blessing with over two million people in and around the coastal areas of the country deriving their source of livelihoods from the exploitation of resources related to ocean.
He noted that the blue economy sector comprising, fisheries, ports and harbours, aquaculture, tourism and hospitality as well as energy and other related subsectors contributed between four and 10 per cent of the country's annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
"In spite of the enormous benefit from our ocean, there is huge degradation occurring in our coastal landscape. This degradation includes coastal erosion caused by sea level rise, pollution from municipal waste such as plastics and chemical pollution from illegal mining activities. It also involves over exploitation of fisheries resources through illegal and unregulated fishing among others," he stressed.
To this end, he said there was an urgent need to deal with the numerous challenges bedevilling the country's coastal landscape to promote sustainability of coastal resources.
He said the country's coastal landscape continued to experience degradation from a number of factors including both natural and manmade and all necessary efforts must be put in to address the situation.
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"The oceans have been useful as a resource of many ecosystem services such as transport, commerce as well as a source of protein and a place of recreation and relaxation.
The health of our ocean and its accompanying resources have deteriorated and rapidly deteriorating as a result of both anthropogenic and natural causes. There is therefore the urgent needs to find ways to better tackle the many issues that threaten the sustainability of our ocean in order to boost the economy of Ghana," he said.
He said the government of Ghana, had embarked on various activities to ensure ocean management and these included; the President of the republic joining the high level panel for sustainable ocean economy.
In addition to this he said the government had approved a loan of $15million from the World Bank on the West Africa Coastal area programme to stem the tide of coastal degradation occurring in coastal areas as well as embarking on various activities to fight Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated IUU fishing in our waters.
On her part, the Pro Vice Chancellor of the UCC, Professor Rosemond Boahene, explained that CFCM of the university was focused on fostering stronger collaboration among researchers, industry, professionals, CSOs and the media to attain Ghana's blue economy agenda.
She said the country's marine resources presented an enormous opportunity for sustainable growth of the economy creating hundreds of jobs.
Prof. Boahene said the time had come to leverage the biotechnology for the marine environment to develop eco-friendly products as well as utilise the renewable energy sources in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuel.
