Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing on the high seas is a worldwide problem. Fisheries authorities agree that managing fish stocks on a regional basis is an important first step towards curbing it.
The fishing countries of Southern Africa have now taken that important step --- and are preparing to go further.
The days are now over when fishing companies could send their vessels on fish raids in the bountiful waters off Southern Africa. In the past, millions of tonnes were taken out illegally, some of them by fleets of member countries of the European Union (EU).
Sophisticated new fisheries' protection vessels (most of which carry helicopters) , combined with state-of-the-art surveillance, now mean that any skipper who takes his vessel illegally into the waters surrounding Southern Africa runs the risk of prosecution and possibly the seizure of his vessel. Moreover most vessels fishing legally are obliged to carry observers, who are not law enforcement officers but whose duty it is to report interlopers.
The coastal countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) - South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania - backed by funding from the SADC and the EU, have set up a coordinated monitoring, control and surveillance system (MCS) for their fishing grounds, using their individual VMS.
By linking them through the Internet, the monitors can spot vessels that stray into waters where they do not have permits to fish. VMS automatically picks up a vessel's‚ name, call sign, position, and speed. If there is no match to permits, then the appropriate authorities are alerted and the vessels are intercepted by fisheries' protection vessels or aircraft.
South Africa, Namibia and Angola use a VMS produced by Blue Finger Ltd. while Mozambique uses a Portuguese variant called "Monicap" (Monitorização ContÃnua das Actividades da Pesca). Tanzania is in the process of acquiring a system.
All vessels fishing in the waters of the five SADC countries must in future be fitted with VMS: this is already a condition under which permits are issued in South Africa and Namibia and the other three countries have amended their fishing laws to follow suit.
However vessel owners will not have to pay for the equipment. The entire cost, including co-ordination and delivery of VMS data, is funded jointly by the SADC/EU. The EU contribution this year amounted to 12 million euros, according to an MCS Programme statement. The SADC contribution includes some funding but consists mostly of logistic support such as staff and offices.
As it is, those Southern African companies which depend largely on exports are feeling the pinch because most of the region's currencies have fallen sharply against the US dollar.
The efficacy of the MCS programme was demonstrated by the detection of the Spanish-registered fishing vessel Maral, found fishing without a permit in Namibian waters last August.
After it was arrested by the recently acquired Namibian fisheries protection vessel Nathaniel Maxuilili, it was found to be long-lining for tuna and swordfish for a South African company. But it had a South African permit, not valid for fishing in Namibian waters. The skipper, Jorge Alonso Martinez, 24, faced five charges under the Namibian Marine Resources Act.
Vessels in operation
South Africa and Namibia are at present probably the best equipped countries in the region for fisheries protection.
Namibia has three fisheries protection vessels, one of which is the Anna Kakurukaze Mungunda, familiarly known as the Anna K. She was built by Construcciones Navales P. Freire S.A. of Vigo, Spain, and funded by a recent bilateral financial agreement between Namibia and Spain. Jorge Perez-Griffo, the Spanish ambassador to Namibia, said at the commissioning ceremony last April that Anna K was the first project undertaken under the agreement.
Soon after commissioning, Anna K was put through her paces in a joint operation in Angolan waters with Angolan fisheries authorities in their waters. A score of vessels were inspected and six were arrested for serious transgressions of Angolan fishing laws.
More recently, Anna K took part in a joint exercise in South African waters with South African fisheries and law enforcement authorities. She cruised at between 80 to 140 nautical miles off the west coast of South Africa, observed 16 vessels trawling for hake and inspected another six. Two vessels were fined for minor infringements.
Cape Town-based MCS specialist Stephen Cederrand commented later that "In general, hake trawlers appear to be compliant." Local journalists invited along for the trip wrote that the Anna K and her crew received a 'surprisingly warm welcome' from the skippers and crews of fishing vessels they intercepted.
The crew of a South African fisheries protection vessel, Eagle Star, could not say the same when they recently conducted a joint exercise in Mozambican waters with their Mozambican counterparts.
The Eagle Star is a converted trawler confiscated from a company convicted of illegal fishing.
An Indonesian and a Chinese fishing vessel were arrested for using banned gillnets to catch shark and certain protected species. Both skippers received substantial fines. An SADC observer in Mozambique told World Fishing that poachers catch the equivalent of the legal TAC in Mozambican waters every year.
South Africa has also acquired two modern, sophisticated fisheries protection vessels and is soon to take delivery of two more. The biggest, Sarah Baartman, was built in Romania and fitted out in the Netherlands; she is expected in Cape Town on December 22. The 83m vessel, which carries a helicopter, has a range of 7,500 nautical miles and is capable of a chase speed "in excess of 20 knots". The first of three Cape Town-built inshore vessels, Lilian Ngoyi, is already in operation. The second, Ruth First, will be delivered in March 2005 and the third, Victoria Mxenge, in June.
The flagship of the South African fisheries protection fleet, Sarah Baartman, will enable South Africa to take its place in patrolling the high seas.
She is capable of operating in distant waters, including the South African Exclusive Economic Zone around Prince Edward and Marion Islands in the Southern Ocean, where the valuable Patagonian toothfish is being poached to extinction. But the toothfish poachers will not be her only target.
