ISS Today: Stemming the tide of illegal trawling in Sierra Leone By ISS Today issafrica
In August last year, a group of frustrated fishermen from Sierra Leone took the law into their own hands when they tangled with a Chinese trawler off the West African coast.Local fishermen chased and boarded the Chinese vessel having repeatedly come under attack by illegal fishing trawlers which destroyed their nets,” Sierra Leone’s navy chief Commodore Sallieu Kanu toldin Freetown. “Once they boarded, they were allegedly offered a bribe by the Chinese crew, which they refused.
Off the coast of Sierra Leone, trawlers from China are the main problem. In January this year, Chinese Ambassador to Sierra Leone Wu Peng said the legal Chinese fleet in the region consisted of 68 vessels, amounting to around 75% of the country’s industrial fishing capacity. One such method is “pair trawling”, where a giant net is strung between two trawlers, indiscriminately hauling in everything in between. “Industrial fishing boats from China and Korea are destroying our nets and also depleting the fish stock,” says Alpha Sheku Kamara, chairman of the Sierra Leone National Fishermen Consortium.
Enforcement of the ban was complicated by the fact that Sierra Leone has only one operational patrol vessel, although the government had said it would devote more resources to monitoring its waters during April.
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