News
PROTECTING THE BLUE GOLD
FISH-i Africa at COFI & OUR OCEAN 2014
Stop Illegal Fishing (SIF) has had a busy month with their flagship initiative FISH-i Africa being presented in two major international forums, the 31st Session of the UN Committee on Fisheries (COFI) which ran from the 9th to the 13th of June in Rome, Italy, and the “Our Ocean” Conference held on the 16th and 17th of June in Washington, USA.
COFI is the only global intergovernmental forum where major international fisheries and aquaculture issues are examined and recommendations made to governments, regional fishery bodies, NGOs, fish workers, the FAO and the international community as a whole. COFI is also where global agreements and non‚binding instruments are negotiated. Members of theSIFnetwork were once again in attendance at COFI supporting the African FAO Member countries!
During the NEPAD-FAO Fish Programme hosted and African themed side event the Hon. Peter Sinon, Minister of Natural Resources from the Seychelles presented the Stop Illegal Fishing experience, during which he spoke about the significance of the ‘Blue Economy’ to Seychelles and Africa. The Minister described the huge threat that illegal fishing, in all its complexity, is presenting on the continent; destroying the marine environment, robbing national economies, stealing food and livelihoods from local people, and undermining the legitimate industry.
Minister Sinon presented the FISH-i Africa initiative, a task force of seven countries formed in late 2012 that developed a model of cooperation and participation that allows countries to work together and take enforcement actions against the illegal operators. To demonstrate the effectiveness and success of the Task Force, the Minister introduced the FISH-i Africa film and proudly announced that with the help of the initiatives key partners, SIF a Working Group of the pan-African inter-governmental NEPAD Agency and the Pew Charitable Trusts, FISH-i Africa is now set to move into a new and exciting three-year phase.
Hot on the heels of his successful participation in COFI 2014, Minister Sinon travelled with members of the FISH-i Africa Task Force to Washington to attend the US Department of State event, Our Ocean 2014. The event was opened by oceans advocate US Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who in his opening remarks addressed issues of over-fishing and called the protection of the world’s oceans “a vital international security issue.” The second day of the conference began with the announcement from US President Barack that he has directed his Federal Government to create a national strategy to combat black-market fishing. Observing that “we all know how fragile our Blue Planet can be”, President Obama stated that for any initiative to succeed it has to be bigger than any one country.
“Stewardship of our ocean is not a one person event, it’s a nation event, a country event; it’s a universal requirement.” – John F. Kerry
The conference defined overfishing, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and by-catch as some of the biggest ocean threats, highlighted by the fact that more than 3 billion people depend on fish for protein. Minister Sinon, invited to present solutions during the Sustainable Fisheries segment of the event, once again took the opportunity to publicise the successes of FISH-i Africa, a model of cooperation that was very well received by all in attendance.
“As we’ve heard in this conference, solutions exist all round us, but they will remain one off projects or just ideas on paper until we commit to act on them on a global scale, together.” – Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s Foundation pledged USD 7 million to meaningful ocean conservation projects over the next two years.
A constant champion in the battle to end IUU fishing on the continent, Minister Sinon has been a supporter of FISH-i Africa since its inception and encourages the backing of this and other solutions to assist developing countries in the fight against illegal fishing. Highlighting the valuable industrial tuna fishery, Minister Sinon cited the FISH-i Task Force “as an excellent example of African good governance and determination and that our region has to rid ourselves of the plague of illegal fishing and only allow those that play by the rules to fish our valuable blue gold.”