The country is currently undergoing a review of its national fisheries law framework and the ten-point communiqu\u00e9, presented to the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development via the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council and the National Fish Processors and Traders Association, calls for stricter penalties for fishing with light, chemicals and explosives; mitigation of impacts from offshore oil development; empowerment of communities to be able to enforce the law at a local level; and an end to the damaging illegal practice known as \u2018saiko\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cEJF fully supports the recommendations made in the communiqu\u00e9,\u201d said Steve Trent, executive director of the Environmental Justice Foundation. \u201cThe voices of small-scale fishers, traders and processors are a crucial part of the industry and must be heard when it comes to designing fair and sustainable fisheries management for Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less vessels<\/strong><\/p>\n Other proposed measures include lengthening the closed season for trawlers; reducing vessel numbers; mandatory consultation with fishing communities on encroachment issues and offshore oil development – with compensation provided for negative impacts; and compensation for damage to fishing gear caused by industrial vessels.<\/p>\n Ghana\u2019s fishing communities are becoming increasingly vulnerable as the crisis in the country\u2019s fisheries deepens. The average annual income per traditional fishing canoe has dropped by as much as 40% in the last 10 to 15 years, and landings of small pelagic fish \u2013 key for local consumption \u2013 are at their lowest recorded level since 1980.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ghana\u2019s small-scale fishers, fish traders and processors have come together to present ten key points they feel should be included in the country\u2019s fisheries law reforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":402,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}