Mozambique: Urgent to install fisheries control centre

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Mozambique: Urgent to install fisheries control centre

3:54 CAT | 18 Aug 2022

Photo: Ministério do Mar, Águas Interiores e Pescas

Mozambique’s Minister of the Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries, Lidia Cardoso, said on Wednesday it is urgent to build the Regional Centre for the Control, Monitoring and Inspection of fisheries.

Speaking in Maputo at the opening of a meeting of her Ministry’s Coordinating Council, Cardoso said the centre, which should be a facility of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), will be crucial in responding to the challenges posed by illegal, undeclared and unregulated fishing, and all other forms of transnational maritime crimes. The centre will be built in Katembe, on the opposite side of the Bay of Maputo from the Mozambican capital.

“We are working to control illegal fishing”, said Cardoso. “This cannot be done from one day to the next, but the government is working to reduce the damaging effects on the economy. It is imperative that we work with all the other interested parties, including with SADC, so that we conclude this activity”.

She said the sophisticated resources used by illegal fishermen, and other crimes against the marine and coastal ecosystems, meant that this was not a problem that her Ministry could deal with on its own. These were matters that required institutional partnerships, and coordination between public and private stakeholders, within and beyond Mozambique’s borders.

Cardoso called for a “maximisation of existing resources to guarantee efficient and effective inspection of fishery activities”.

The Minister said, although it is undeniable that currently 92 per cent of Mozambican fisheries production comes from artisanal fishermen, the time has come for a revival of industrial fishing, and for the industrial fishing vessels to reclaims the space they had once occupied in Mozambican exports.

Cardoso wanted the industrial fishing companies to do more than simply fish. They should “diversify their area of activity, and seek partnerships to develop the value chain of fisheries produce, thus increasing their production and their revenue”.

Source: AIM