Ivory Coast to begin periodic fishing ban to combat illegal practices

La Cote d’Ivoire plans to introduce annual periods of ban on fishing in its waters, as part of a raft of measures to combat Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, starting from 1 July 2023.

This was made known by Mr Assoumany Gouromenan, Director of Cabinet, la Cote d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Animals and Fisheries Resources, on Monday 15 May 2023, at the opening ceremony of a 3-day symposium organized by the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), in conjunction with the Government of Denmark, at the Hotel le Vaisseau, Abidjan, to address trends and impact of IUU fishing in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG).

The measures include the Ministry pursuing policies such as pooling together logistics and operational means as part of the coordination of State Action at Sea, sustainable management of fisheries and animal resources to improve monitoring, control and surveillance of fisheries, and the establishment of a fisheries surveillance centre specialized in providing satellite monitoring of activities.

Additionally, he said Ivory Coast is updating the adoption of a decree on the terms and conditions for the fisheries control and surveillance, as well as decisions derived from the country’s Law of 26 July 2016, and a system for fisheries control in parts of the country to support the activities of the Fisheries Directorate.

He further asserted the Ministry’s determination to work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Goal 14, which relates to marine life and the Goal on peace, justice and effective institutions, and then announced that, on 23 March 2023, la Cote d’Ivoire endorsed international actions against transnational organized crime in the fisheries industry adopted at the Copenhagen Summit in March 2023 – also called the Blue Justice Initiative.

The Commandant, KAIPTC – Major General Richard Addo Gyane, who led a delegation from one of three prestigious West African Training Centers of Excellence (TCE) to organize the conference, said it was the first to be implemented in Cote d’Ivoire, in a dialogue series for a project KAIPTC has with the Danish Government, in a 5-year project dubbed “Integrated Responses to Threats to Maritime Safety and Security in the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Domain in West and Central Africa”.

General Gyane said recent alarming statistics indicate that the GoG is losing billions of dollars annually to illicit fishing activities and that the region is losing up to $2.3 billion annually due to IUU; resources which could have been used to improve the livelihoods of the people in the region.

He furthered that the meeting – which is being hosted by Cote d’Ivoire’s Permanent Secretariat of the Inter-Ministerial Committee for State Action at Sea (SEPCIM) – will cover sub-themes of gender and women’s stories in the maritime domain, the responses of various stakeholders, issues regarding monitoring and compliance in the maritime domain, as well as that on regional collaboration and cooperation.

Participants of the Seminar were assembled from the KAIPTC, Maritime Institutions, and other West African states such as Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Commandant Kouassi Yao Jean Pirre – Technical Secretary in Charge of Maritime and Ports Affairs, Ivory Coast, was present at the opening ceremony with other dignitaries.