Ninth Stop Illegal Fishing Annual General Meeting

By Stop Illegal Fishing:14th May, 2021:

Members of Stop Illegal Fishing (SIF) participated in the ninth SIF Annual General Meeting that took place online on 20 April 2021.

The meeting approved the Executive Committee’s Annual Report and financial statements as well as the election of two new committee members.

Elsa Patria, SIF Chair, welcomed Manuel Castiano and Sally Frankcom to the Executive Committee and thanked departing committee members Markus Burgener and Zahor El Kharousy, saying, “We appreciate the knowledge, skills and support that Zahor and Markus have brought to SIF. We value their continued support and engagement as voting members.”

Sandy Davies, Treasurer, presented a summary of SIFs’ activities during 2020. Support to the implementation of port State measures has been a focus area with the challenges and experiences of implementation identified through national level support to Ghana, Madagascar and Mozambique, funded through the Ports State Measures to Stop Illegal Fishing (PSM-SIF) initiative.

SIF’s ongoing participation in the two regional IUU task forces was also discussed. As both the West Africa Task Force and FISH-i Africa evolve to find homes in regional monitoring, control and surveillance centres the successful mechanisms and tools established by the task forces will become embedded in permanent homes. The MCS centres are hosted by the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea and the Southern African Development Community respectively.

Mark Ssemakula, appointed as Vice Chair, stated, “The strength of SIF has always been in its network and it is great to see this continue to develop, even in such tough times. The last year has seen SIF continue to innovate and the use of body worn cameras to support the identification and investigation of illegal fishing is very exciting.”

Per Erik Bergh, SIF Secretary commented, “SIF continues to operate as a network organisation with no employees and no core funding. This innovative and cost-effective system, with NFDS Africa providing the Secretariat functions, has enabled us to provide support to fisheries enforcement officers and contribute to international discussion on the best means of stopping illegal fishing. The SIF network incorporates individuals who have worked in fishery enforcement and MCS across Africa, and in 2021 we will look at new ways to expand our network even further”.

Participation was open to all 24 SIF voting members.

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SIF News Categories

The Issues

One in four fish in Africa is caught illegally, this threatens the sustainability of fish stocks, damages the ecosystem and deprives governments of income and people of livelihoods.

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Our Approach

Creating change by informing policy and practice, our hands on experience and investigative work means we are often the first to spot new trends and find ways to challenge these.

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Our Initiatives

Illegal fishing is a complex issue that requires multifaceted responses. Stop Illegal Fishing are working with a range of organisations to bring about change.

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