{"id":6404,"date":"2019-11-06T10:02:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T07:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6404"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","slug":"eu-targets-fragile-west-african-fish-stocks-despite-protection-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/06\/eu-targets-fragile-west-african-fish-stocks-despite-protection-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Targets Fragile West African Fish Stocks, Despite Protection Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By<\/strong> <strong>Ifesinachi\nOkafor-Yarwood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of the large fishing vessels that operate in West\nAfrica&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.odi.org\/sites\/odi.org.uk\/files\/resource-documents\/10665.pdf\">are\nfrom<\/a>&nbsp;distant water fishing nations \u2013 such as countries in the European\nUnion (EU) and China and Russia. To get permission to fish in West African\nwaters they form agreements in exchange for a fee that is payable to the\ngovernment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But these agreements have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.researchgate.net\/publication\/236227528_Overfishing_in_west_Africa_by_EU_vessels\">been\ncriticised<\/a>&nbsp;for contributing to the over-exploitation of fish stocks in\nthe region. Specifically affected are, Guinea-Bissau, C\u00f4te d\u2032Ivoire, Liberia,\nCape Verde, Mauritania, Senegal and The Gambia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So far,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/nigerias-depleting-fish-stocks-may-pose-a-threat-to-regional-security-105168\">over\nhalf<\/a>&nbsp;of the fisheries resources in waters off West Africa are already\nover-fished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0964569119301620?via%3Dihub\">our\nrecent paper<\/a>, my colleague Dyhia Belhabib and I show that the EU\u2019s\nagreements with West African countries continue to target fragile fish stocks.\nThis is despite the fact that the EU is bound by policies that are meant to\nprotect fish stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>EU activities alone are not to blame for over-fishing in the\nregion. The impact of trawling by other countries,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/chinadialogueocean.net\/5984-foreign-trawling-west-africa\/\">like\nChina<\/a>, is&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/av\/world-africa-47698314\/is-china-s-fishing-fleet-taking-all-of-west-africa-s-fish\">well-documented<\/a>.\nBut, through its fisheries policies, the EU has a commitment to sustainable\nfishing. It also continues to enter into fresh agreements with countries,\ndespite evidence of serious population declines in the species of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/eu-targets-fragile-west-african-fish-stocks-despite-protection-laws-125679\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ifesinachi Okafor-Yarwood Most of the large fishing vessels that operate in West Africa&nbsp;are from&nbsp;distant water fishing nations \u2013 such as countries in the European Union (EU) and China and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}