Fishery Research Project Launched

Albertina Nakale

30 May 2011

Windhoek — The Benguela Current Commission (BCC) launched a joint research project expected to modernize the scientific assessment of key marine fisheries in Namibia.

It is anticipated that the BBC that was launched last Friday in Windhoek will also modernize the scientific assessment of key marine fisheries in Angola and South Africa.

Aptly named ECOFISH, the project intends to improve the scientific assessment of hake, horse-mackerel and sardinella – three fish stocks considered most important for securing the prosperity of the fishing industries of the three countries and the livelihoods of fishermen and fish workers. The ultimate goal of ECOFISH is to help the three SADC countries implement an ecosystem approach to fisheries management that is focused on maintaining or improving the health of the marine ecosystem so as to be preferable to traditional fisheries management approaches, which focus on the management of single species.

The three countries committed themselves to introducing an ecosystem approach to fisheries management at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.

The ECOFISH project will help fulfill this pledge. ECOFISH has won the support of the European Union (EU), which has provided a grant of 1.5 million Euro to fund the initiative over four years (2011-2015).

Officially launching the project, the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Berhard Esau, said marine resources assessment, exploration and exploitation have traditionally been perceived as spatially delimitated by geo-political boundaries. This ideology, he added, has been disproved by the scientific community, which now believes that the distribution of aquatic resources does not respect geopolitical boundaries.

Esau said the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) countries have thus committed to the process of identifying marine shared resources that could later be managed as a unit within the perimeters of the BCLME.

“We are very delighted in witnessing this critical support which has been made possible by the EU. This support has come at an opportune time when we are experiencing some gaps in the commission’s work which is a consequences of limited resources in an environment of unlimited needs or wants. The EU fortunately agreed to fill these gaps by making available an amount of 1.5 million Euro,” he stated.

Speaking at the same occasion was Ambassador Raul Fuentes Milani, Head of Delegation of the EU to the Republic of Namibia. Milani said the BCC is one of the most productive fishing grounds of the world and is rich in pelagic and demersal fish populations.

Unfortunately, he explained, mankind, particularly after the Second World War, heavily exploited these populations.

Total fish catches climbed rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s to 3 million tonnes and declined to a level of 2 million in the 1970s to 1.2 million tonnes in the 1990s.

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