Greenpeace is trying kill a new shellfishery project in Mauritania that it is not only potentially very profitable for the poor desert country, but which is also responsible and sustainable, according to Dr Ad Corten.
The internationally well-respected Dutch fisheries scientist attached to IMROP, the Mauritanian fisheries institute based in the northern port of Nouadhibou, accused the global marine environmentalists of resorting to a cocktail of alarmist half-truths and untruths in its crusade to stop Holland Shellfish's project.
The leading Dutch shellfish catcher and processor has been looking at the possibility of developing the unexploited banks of two species of a relative of the cockle, the Venus shell, the Venus verrucosa and the Venus Rosalina, off the Mauritanian coast at several metres depth, but well outside the limits of Banc d’Arguin, the coastal national park famous for its slat mud flats protected by Unesco world heritage status.
An agreement was reached between the Mauritanian government and Holland Shellfish to begin harvesting on an experimental basis just 3% annually of the stocks with adapted mechanised cockle boats that will be processed onshore in Mauritania for export to the EU - resulting in not only revenue generating value added seafood exports, but also hundreds of much needed permanent and casual jobs, said Dr Corten.
He added that the Dutch government only got involved with financing the scientific monitoring of the project, not with co-financing the whole project as Greenpeace had falsely claimed.
“This is one of the untruths they have published in a very glossy brochure to mobilise politicians and public opinion in The Netherlands against the Holland Shellfish project,” said Dr Corten.
He explained that Greenpeace had returned for a third time to Mauritania last month to carry out more research, with full cooperation of IMROP, into the ecological impact of the proposed shellfishery.
“They only found that at certain places the seabed is damaged by bottom trawling, but we in IMROP knew that already and this has nothing to do with the proposed mechanical sucking of Venus shells. They only managed to annoy the Mauritanian authorities,” said Dr Corten.
After the Mauritanian government rejected Greenpeace’s pleas to stop the project, Greenpeace switched its lobbying to The Netherlands. It was hoping to emulate its success in banning the cockle and mussel fisheries in the Dutch part of the ‘Wadden Zee’, a complex of mud flats and islands along the North Sea coast from The Netherlands to Denmark to protect marine wildlife like birds and seals, said Dr Corten.
“To me and the Mauritanians it looks as if Greenpeace is more interested in continuing its feud with Holland Shellfish rather than helping to ecologically and economically develop another potentially profitable fishery in Mauritania to the benefit of its people. Greenpeace should not forget that Mauritania has established one of the best functioning fishery protection services in Africa,” Dr Corten said.
Greenpeace won’t be able to stop the Mauritanians going ahead with the project, but it could seriously affect existing Dutch-Mauritanian fisheries cooperation, warned Dr Corten.
