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Implementation of EAF management plans for beach seine fisheries in the Gulf of Guinea by EAF-Nansen Programme

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The EAF-Nansen Programme fielded a mission to Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin in November 2018 as part of the Programme’s support for the implementation of management plans for beach seine fisheries in the Gulf of Guinea. The team for the mission was made up of Dr Kwame Koranteng, who was the Coordinator of the EAF-Nansen Project until 2017, and Mr Matthieu Bernardon, an independent consultant. The objectives of the mission were:

1.To assess the status of implementation of the beach seine management plan in each country,

2.To understand recent developments in the fisheries sector since 2013 when the plans were completed and approved for implementation and the need for possible updates,

3.To identify other projects and initiatives in place that could be in synergy with or in support of the implementation of the beach seine fisheries management plan, and

4.To prioritize activities from the plan that could be supported by the EAF-Nansen Programme, and to assess the needs for the same.

In each country, the team had initial discussions with the Director of Fisheries, the Focal Point of the Programme and relevant staff of the FAO Representation. A national workshop was then held which was attended by stakeholders (fishers, fisheries managers and researchers, security personnel and environmental protection/management officers, among others). At the workshop, the group reviewed the activities included in the management plan, identified priority actions and agreed on implementation modalities including the role of a national implementation or steering committees. In Cote d’Ivoire, the team also visited a community of beach seine operators in Jacqueville, a coastal town 40 km west of Abidjan.

At Jacqueville, some of the problems that the beach seine fishery is facing, particularly poor catches were evident. The dependence of a large sector of the fishing community on the beach fishery was also obvious as so many women and children were at the beach waiting for the catch from the only unit that operated that day. Interestingly, many of the women were able to take home small portions of the rather poor catch. One of the issues identified in the management plans is the clogging of nets by marine litter and sargasum weeds during fishing operations. On the day of the visit the entire beach was full of the weed which had been washed ashore over days and the bag of the beach seine net was also full of weeds together with the catch.

The mission noted that in all three countries key actions have been taken towards implementation of the management plan. In Togo, the government has provided funds to procure netting materials of the appropriate mesh size to replace the existing bags of the beach seine nets as recommended in the management plan. In Cote d’Ivoire and Benin, new laws have come into force that give legal backing to the implementation of the management plan. Discussions are ongoing in Benin that could lead to a complete ban of the beach seine fishery in the country.

It would be recalled that between 2009 and 2013, the then EAF-Nansen Project provided technical and financial support to a number of partner countries in Africa to develop management plans for selected fisheries using the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) framework. In each country, a multi-stakeholder National Task Group was set up and facilitated by the EAF-Nansen Project to lead the preparation of the management plan. The plans for Cote d’Ivoire, Togo and Benin were among those that were finalised and approved for implementation by the Minister responsible for fisheries in each country. The NTGs of the three countries, as well as Ghana, collaborated in the preparation of the management plans to ensure that the recommended actions and management measures were similar in the region since the fishery is the same. In this phase of the Nansen Programme, support is being provided for the implementation of the plans through the establishment and operationalization of a fisheries management cycle (FMC) in each country.

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