Once again, the 2023 Closed Fishing Season has come to an end and the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Mrs. Mavis Hawa Koomson, has performed a traditional ritual to open Ghana’s waters to artisanal and inshore fleets.
During the ceremony to open the waters, Minister Hawa Koomson stated that her ministry achieved 97% level of compliance and cooperation from the fishermen in this years’ closed season.
According to the fisheries act 2002 Act (625), a person who engages in fishing during the closed season, declared in accordance with this section commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not less than $5,000.00 and not more than $2milion in respect of a local industrial or semi-industrial fishing vessel respectively.
The fishermen, the minister said, have gradually come to terms with the essence of the season and were complying to make the initiative successful. She, however, conceded that though the ministry has achieved significant gains, there were still a handful of fishermen who still disobeyed the ban.
For instance, on July 23, 2023 three fishermen were arrested by the Denu Police Command of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) in the Volta Region, after they were found fishing during the closed season. Their accomplices fled upon seeing members of the closed season monitoring team.
The closed season is implemented every year by the Ministry to reduce overfishing and high fishing pressure, as well as to recover overexploited fish stocks, rebuild depleted fish stocks and replenish dwindling fish stocks. The fishing closed season has been observed by Ghana since 2019, except for the year 2020, which was not observed because of COVID-19.
This year’s closed season saw Cote d’Ivoire join Ghana to observe the period.
Ghana has over 12,000 registered canoes on her waters and from all indication this year was a success, as the Minister puts it.
The Chronicle is, however, dismayed at the Minister’s failure to make public the scientific data backing the closed season. Though she admitted during the ceremony to close the 2023 season that there is scientific evidence backing the season, she has failed to make available the said scientific data. We are challenging the Minister to make public the scientific data backing the 2023 closed fishing season.
We are also asking the sector Minister that, after closing and opening our waters for fishing, what is next? Are we going to allow the fishermen to go back to the old traditional methods of fishing – that is Illegal Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing?
Certainly no! There is the need for the Ministry to engage the fishermen, educate and sensitize them on the right fishing practices they need to adopt in their fishing trade. Therefore fishmongers, fish buyers and sellers should not be left out of the sensitization and education exercise. This is because they hold the key to ending the bad practices of fishing on our waters. We are saying this because they know and they are able to identify fishes that were trapped using bad fishing method.
So for the Ministry to end the IUU fishing, most particularly on our waters, then it is the fish buyers, sellers and smokers who hold the key to nip this canker in the bud.
That apart, it calls for sub-regional partnership in fighting IUU and other maritime crimes on our waters. This brings to mind the 3 Cs in fighting maritime crimes – cooperation, collaboration and coordination among the sub- regional partners, given that one country cannot fight maritime crimes on our waters alone.
