The Rio +20 United Nations meeting on Sustainable Development which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012, focused on institutional framework for sustainable development.
One of the major issues discussed was about the advancement of the green economy concept where communities are urged to look at eradication of poverty for sustainable economic growth while considering conservation of ecosystem including fishing activities in seas, oceans, lakes, rivers plus aquaculture, shipping, use of port facilities, submarine mining, tourism, energy and biotechnology.
The marine environment provides humanity with a countless of services ranging from food security and climate regulation to nutrient cycling and natural storm protection.
These in turn supports livelihoods in sectors ranging from tourism to fisheries but the last three to four decades have seen increasing degradation of water bodies as a result of pollution from land-based challenges, overfishing and climate change.
This is threatening the livelihoods of millions of people around the world who depend on these critical ecosystems for their primary source of protein and for job security both directly and indirectly.
With a growing population, set to rise from seven billion today to over nine billion by 2050, these pressures and impacts are likely to intensify unless the world becomes more intelligent about managing these essential resources.
This is an analysis from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) 2012 report about the Green Economy in a Blue World stressing issues on how key sectors that are interlinked with the marine and coastal environment can be handled by Nations for economic development.
Looking at Africa, development partners like the African Union (AU) in collaboration with European Union have developed a project to cover the fisheries sector for growth of the green economy.
In a paper presented by Mr. Dinesh Aryal Natural Resources Management Specialist at the World Bank department of Environment and Natural Resources on August 25, 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya during stakeholders meeting about the importance of the green economy in relation to protection of ecosystem , he noted that the pilot project lasting one and half months worthy 11,681,500 Euros funded by EU to be implemented in 54 African Union (AU) member countries Uganda inclusive will focus on improvement of the green economy in fisheries sector.
While giving the overview about opportunities that exist in fisheries sector and its importance to the fishing community Mr Aryal emphasized that over 200 million people are employed in the developing countries and in Africa3.6 million are employed in the fishing sector with up to 16 million along the value chain and processing.
He said fish is a primary source of protein for about 1 billion people in the developing countries which help in reduction of malnutrition.
The annual value of sale of sea food in Africa is worthy $5 billion about Shs17 trillion and Africa’s net exporter of fish is valued at $4.8 billion about Shs16.3 trillion. Coastal communities are the frontline of the impact of climate change like ocean acidification, shrubs and sea level rise.
“In order to maintain this economic value, effects of climate change on the water bodies has to be mitigated like maintaining mangroves, forests which are near water bodies and sea grass beds are critical for blue carbon, he explained.
Other challenges include vulnerability of fishermen to storms and excessive juvenile fish catchment which reduces productivity and healthy live cycles.
Mr Aryal says that for the blue economy to grow in Africa there is need for increasing sustainable harvest of fish, seafood, sea grass, seaweed, mangrove forests and securing domestic economic return from fisheries and aquaculture.
2016 allAfrica.com