A new partnership has been created to strengthen the control of fishing activities around Benin.
The West African nation is establishing a vessel monitoring system supported by Global Fishing Watch who will in turn provide technical knowhow, capacity building and training on its vessel monitoring tools.
Benin has formally agreed to share its data via the Global Fishing Watch map – the first African nation to commit to making its fishing fleet publicly visible.
“Greater transparency in fishing activity is an effective and cost-efficient means of driving more compliant behaviour at sea,” said Dame Mboup, Global Fishing Watch’s programme manager for West and Central Africa. “Benin is demonstrating leadership in using cutting-edge technology and open data to combat illegal fishing.”
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing account for nearly 40% of all fish caught in West Africa. “This region has seen its fish decline drastically,” continued Dame Mboup. “Regional collaboration is crucial to eliminate IUU fishing and restore fish populations.”
In addition to the Benin partnership which was facilitated by non-profit EcoBenin, Global Fishing Watch has also signed letters of intent with Cameroon, Gabon, Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal to collaborate on governance tools, capacity transfer and analysis. The Regional Fisheries Commission for the Gulf of Guinea and the Sub-regional Fisheries Commission have also expressed their interest in joining forces.
Global Fishing Watch and the international non-profit, TM-Tracking have launched a pilot project with Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea to provide satellite tracking data, analysis and training to assess a fishing vessel’s recent operations and compliance risk.
The collaboration will use a new tool called vessel viewer which provides information on a vessel’s identity, fishing activity, port visits and transshipments to help assess the need for inspection and port access.
