On World Fisheries Day (21 November), the Canoe & Fishing Gear Owners Association of Ghana (CaFGOAG) has called for transparency in the fisheries sector through necessary interventions to offset threats and to overcome the challenges faced by the country’s artisanal fishers.
In a press release, CaFGOAG stated:
The year-long celebration of the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022) has been to raise awareness on the role of small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in food security, job creation and poverty eradication.
In Ghana, it has been a period of reawakening among artisanal fishers of the prospects that small-scale fisheries hold for coastal dwellers; men and women, and youth, in particular. IYAFA has offered artisanal fishers in Ghana an important opportunity to highlight the challenges that the sector faces, and to empower stakeholders to take action to build new, and strengthen existing, partnerships to sustain the sector.
Recent interventions by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture (MoFAD), the Fisheries Commission (FC), and partners to improve regulation (e.g. the Legislative Review), enforcement
(e.g., the trawl gear modification, among others), and the planned gear exchange in the artisanal fisheries sector, give hope that with strong collaborations among stakeholders, the current bad situation can be made a good one.
As an association, CaFGOAG acknowledges the enormous contributions of stakeholders in areas of improving the governance and management of Ghana’s fisheries. This, we urge stakeholders to continue, especially in the face of emerging threats to small-scale fisheries, associated with debt swaps and the Blue Economy, which hold opportunities but equally need enough political will and
commitment to harness them, and to avert disastrous consequences on artisanal fisheries.
We, therefore, call on the government of Ghana, MoFAD and FC to consider transparency in fisheries as a serious intervention in the face of these fast-emerging threats, to safeguard Ghana’s artisanal fisheries.
We are also bringing to the attention of the government that the halt in premix fuel supply without readily available alternative affordable fuel for artisanal fishers has caused a lot of apprehension among the artisanal fisheries fraternity, including fishers, processers, and fishworkers, and it is important for MoFAD and the Premix Fuel Secretariat to urgently engage fishers on the way forward.
We urge artisanal fishers to remain calm and support the government in these difficult times to stem the tides of economic decline, with the hope that the government will continue to support artisanal fisheries as the economic situation improves. Let’s together promote responsible fishing to safeguard our livelihoods. We can continue to happily celebrate World Fisheries Day only when the fish is here.
We wish all fisheries stakeholders a fruitful World Fisheries Day celebration.