On the third day of the West Africa capacity-building workshop researchers narrowed down subject areas to analyze — areas, they agree, that are affecting all countries in the West Africa sub-region, and therefore, need to be confronted through nation-to-nation collaboration.

Dr. Dyhia Belhabib, who organized and is coordinating the two-week workshop, said that four topics have been decided upon. These are, broadly, climate change, marine protected areas, illegal fishing, and governance. A different group of researchers will look at each of the topics.

For climate change, it is important to understand the resilience of artisanal fisheries in the facing of changing temperatures, and mitigation steps that can be taken. Regarding marine protected areas (MPA’s), the researchers will look at tools for assessing and evaluating their effectiveness, and how MPA’s create resilience in local communities. A group of researchers will study whether enforcement is an effective measure to recover value lost by IUU fishing. And finally, another group will study the need for better data in facilitating effective governance.

The workshop is a unique opportunity for researchers from multiple West African countries to share data and experience.

Alkaly Doumbouya, a Senior Scientist at Guinea’s centre for fisheries science, believes finding data to combat these issues is difficult — yet meeting with researchers from other countries, and with the Sea Around Us, can help fill in the gaps.

“It is not easy to find data because data is rarely made public. And the ministries do not work well together,” he says about Guinea, where he is from.

To help with this issue, other members in the workshop are helping to find relevant data, he adds.

Dyhia, who is facilitating the dialogue among the various groups, is emphasizing the sharing and collaboration of information. “Every group is contributing to other groups” she says.

Doumbouya believes Dyhia is essential to the workshops functioning. “Dyhia has travelled to all these countries and understands the issues there,” he says.

Doumbouya’s group in the workshop is looking at illegal fishing. He says there is a lot of data on the number of illegal boats caught, and how much fish they have caught, as well as the fines they have paid — yet the problem is that all the data is spread through various institutions in his country, Guinea. He hopes that countries in the sub-region can come together, share data, and create standardized rules to measure the effects of illegal fishing, and enforce rules prohibiting it.

The workshop will break after lunch for a trip to the Vancouver Aquarium. Updates to come.

By Nicola Smith

I attended the FAO 32nd session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) as a part of the official Bahamas delegation on 11th – 15th July 2016 in Rome, Italy. Edison Deleveaux, deputy director of Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Marine Resources in The Bahamas, accompanied me as part of the delegation. The trip was made possible due to the generosity of the Sea Around Us at the University of British Columbia. Dyhia Belhabib from the Sea Around Us and Angela Bednarek from The Pew Charitable Trusts joined Mr. Deleveaux and I in Rome for COFI 32 and coordinated our stay while there. In addition to attending the COFI meeting, I presented key findings from The Bahamas fisheries catch reconstruction study (1950-2010), conducted by Dirk Zeller and I and published in the January 2016 issue of Fishery Bulletin, at the COFI 32 side event entitled, “Reliable fishery statistics and importance for food security assessments”.

Attending COFI 32 was significant for The Bahamas for three main reasons. First, and most important, this was the first time that a delegation from The Bahamas has had the opportunity to attend COFI. Second, as an official spokesperson for the government of The Bahamas, Edison Deleveaux made a country statement on the floor of COFI on 11th July 2016 that specifically addressed the need to improve catch data collection and reporting in The Bahamas. In his statement, Mr. Deleveaux mentioned that The Bahamas was implementing a new, improved fisheries data collection system with assistance from the FAO. This new system accounts for catches from the subsistence fishery for the first time and improves upon reporting of catches from the small-scale artisanal fishery. Moreover, Mr. Deleveaux highlighted in his statement that although this new data collection system is promising, it still does not account for catches from the recreational fishery in The Bahamas, which a catch reconstruction study conducted in collaboration with the Sea Around Us showed to be substantial. This latter point about unreported catches from the recreational fishery is important, and was the focus of my presentation during the COFI 32 side event the following day on 12th July 2016. Third, during COFI, Mr. Deleveaux and I were able to speak with Milton Haughton, executive director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism Secretariat, and Mark Williams, director of the Marine Resources Department in St. Kitts and Nevis, to coordinate country statements on the floor of COFI 32 about the impacts of climate change on fisheries in the Caribbean, which are already being felt.

The side event at COFI 32 on fishery statistics was a huge success. The event was organized by the FAO and co-sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the governments of The Gambia and The Bahamas. The event was held on 12th July 2016 at 12h30 to 14h00 in the Ethiopia room of the FAO, and consisted of several presentations followed by a panel discussion that was moderated by Fred Kingston, executive secretary of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization. Dyhia Belhabib gave a presentation on “Catch reconstructions: approach, results and implications in a data poor context” while I presented on “The ‘other’ half of the story: unreported catch data for The Bahamas”. National representatives from The Gambia, Cameroun and Senegal also gave presentations in addition to Manuel Barange, director of Fisheries and Aquaculture Division at FAO, who presented on “FAO’s approach to improvement of statistics for securing small-scale fisheries”. There were approximately 50 people in the attendance, including Edison Deleveaux from The Bahamas delegation.

My presentation was well received at the side event. I emphasized the importance and magnitude of catches from the recreational fishery in The Bahamas – recreational fishing accounted for 55% of total reconstructed catches from 1950 through 2010 – and the need to report catches from this sector, which is closely linked to tourism in small island states. Several people, including FAO staff members and various country delegates, approached me after my presentation to congratulate me on a great talk and to state that they had not realized the importance of recreational fisheries and its strong ties to tourism. Some people such as Philippe Michaud, president of the Seychelles Fishing Authority, Ministère des Finances, du Commerce et de l’Économie Bleue, also expressed that there were several similarities between their own countries and The Bahamas in terms of the close linkage between tourism and recreational fisheries. Philippe Michaud also raised the point that there is a need to conduct an economic valuation of recreational fisheries in small island states dependent on tourism.

The greatest success of the side event, from my perspective, was when the FAO acknowledged the validity of reconstructed catch data for The Bahamas. Specifically, during the panel discussion, Luca Garibaldi stated that the FAO was willing to accept all of the reconstructed catch data for The Bahamas, particularly the recreational catch data, provided that The Bahamas government officially endorses the reconstructed catch data and retroactively submits it to the FAO. Mr. Garibaldi also expressed the need for The Bahamas catch reconstruction to be updated to 2015.

The second day of the West Africa capacity-building workshop saw Dr. Rashid Sumaila give an engaging lecture on the economics of fisheries. The workshop is being coordinated by Dr. Dyhia Belhabib and is funded through the generous support of the MAVA Foundation.

Sumaila discussed several fundamental principles — like supply and demand, externalities, and incentives — and applied them to real world examples in West Africa.

Sumaila also discussed how fishing subsidies — the bad ones, at least — can negatively affect fisheries management policies, and how this has been an issue for a long time. For instance, in the seminal book Wealth of Nations, legendary philosopher/economist Adam Smith talked at length about fishers off the coast of the UK during the 1700’s — who were, as Sumaila summarizes, “not fishing for fish but fishing for subsidies.”

Fisheries economics is important for many West African countries, especially Sierra Leone, Senegal, and The Gambia, where entire coastal communities rely on fish catches to sustain their livelihoods — and yet, where illegal fishing, often by foreign fleets, is devastating their ability to continue fishing as they’ve done for hundreds of years.

Josephus Mamie is from Sierra Leone and works for the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, where he is responsible for supervising statistics data collection and analysis, and implementation of fisheries policies. He is at the workshop to broaden his knowledge and connect with different researchers confronting a spectrum of issues.

“It’s always good to learn about new initiatives and to work with renowned scientists like Rashid Sumaila and Daniel Pauly,” he said.

In Sierra Leone, fishing is becoming less economically viable due to the scourge of illegal fishing. Mamie believes Sierra Leone needs to take concrete steps to confront the issue.

“We need a national plan of action to combat illegal fishing. But right now we have limited capacity, capability, and capital to address it,” he said.

Sumaila agrees. The fishing sector in West Africa is in trouble and today thousands of fishers are unemployed, and all too often their livelihood has been ‘stolen’ by foreign fleets. In fact, many fishers are migrating north in search of employment in Europe — a dangerous and often disappointing journey.

Sumaila believes researchers in West African countries need better data and better arguments to pressure their governments to implement more effective policies. He hopes that after the two week workshop, many of the researchers present will have better tools to move that conversation forward.

Sea Around Us Workshop at the University of British Columbia

July 25th – August 5th, 2016
By Dr. Dyhia Belhabib

We are happy to announce a fully funded capacity-building workshop for fisheries scientists and fisheries experts from the West African sub-region (i.e., Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Cape-Verde, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone), funded by the MAVA Foundation. The workshop –- which will run between July 25 and August 5 — will be held at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia. The Sea Around Us has focused its work over the last decade on the ‘reconstruction’ of total catches by the marine fisheries of the world, with a heavy emphasis on fisheries – domestic and foreign – in West Africa.

The training-plan for the workshop will focus on the priority issue of each country, using detailed catch reconstruction data, Marine Protected Area coverage, climate change indexes, and other parameters researched by participants. Their research will focus on data and knowledge gaps that require addressing and will produce scientific papers authored or co-authored by the candidates. The workshop will also include instructions on major concepts such as fishing down the marine food webs and shifting baselines, fisheries economics and policy, climate change impacts, Marine Protected Areas, as well as details of the global Sea Around Us and FAO databases, the global online encyclopedias FishBase/SeaLifeBase, and some basic training in scientific writing.

Expected outcomes:

At the end of the workshop, each participant or group of participants will be expected to produce a draft of a paper whose topic will be conceptualized within the above stated fields. This paper will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal during or immediately after the workshop.

The Sea Around Us, which together with the Fisheries Economics Research Unit (FERU), and the Changing Oceans Research Unit (CORU), form the Global Fisheries Cluster (www.global-fc.ubc.ca) — which itself is headquartered at the Institute of Oceans and Fisheries at UBC. Participants are expected to interact with and develop collaborations with these units based on their country’s priority issues. It is hoped that these interactions and collaborations will be leveraged into future opportunities for data exchange and collaborative research work.

Furthermore, the participants are expected to develop a solid regional West Africa network and work closely with colleagues from other West African countries to research common issues and priorities.

The most recent meeting of the Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (COFI) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) ended July 15 in Rome, and Dr. Dyhia Belhabib represented the Sea Around Us.

COFI is essentially the global parliament of fisheries. It is the only global inter-governmental forum where major international fisheries and aquaculture problems and issues are examined.

Dyhia also participated at a COFI side event where catch reconstructions were discussed between the FAO, the Sea Around Us, country representatives, staff from The Pew Charitable Trusts and Vulcan Inc., and other interested parties. This side event was sponsored by the governments of The Bahamas and The Gambia in collaboration with the Sea Around Us. It was a good opportunity for Dyhia to explain what catch reconstructions are, and why they are helpful to countries for improving their national data on fisheries catches.

Here is a summary of the Sea Around Us’ experiences at COFI and the associated side event:

This was the second time that Sea Around Us participated at COFI. And this time, we had a side event organized by FAO and co-sponsored by The Bahamas and The Gambia, in collaboration with the Sea Around Us.

FAO strives for reliable catch statistics and they help countries in their data collection and capacity building. FAO relies heavily on statistics provided by countries. However, often some catch data are deemed to be non-existent simply because a country has no formal data collection program in place for certain aspects of fisheries, e.g., recreational fisheries or subsistence takes. This constrains the data FAO can report on behalf of these countries, leading to global statistics under-representing actual total catches, as clearly documented in a paper in Nature Communications by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller in early 2016 [accessible here], and in other regional [e.g., Pacific islands, accessible here] and country-specific publications [example accessible here or here]. This is where the Sea Around Us with its catch reconstruction approach can contribute, by using reasonable and conservative methods to estimate those catches missing from official data collection programs.

Side event at COFI

The Sea Around Us submitted a proposal for a COFI side event co-sponsored by the governments of The Bahamas and The Gambia. The COFI organizing committee combined this proposal with a data event proposed by FAO. Thus, FAO kindly organized a combined side event, and Dyhia Belhabib was able to meet several FAO statistical staff, including Marc Taconet, Lucas Garibaldi and the new Director of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division (FIA), Manuel Barange.

During the event, Dyhia had the impression that there were misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding the reconstruction methods that the Sea Around Us and the large number of our international collaborators use. This misunderstanding indicates to us that many of the people who quickly criticize a country’s catch reconstruction often seem not to have read the relevant papers and reports carefully to understand the methods and approaches used. To criticize that the methods used are not ‘proper’ or ‘relevant’ seems to also miss the fact that around 1/3 of all reconstructions have now been embedded in the scientific literature and have thus undergone independent and critical expert peer-review. Thus, it is not viable for the international fisheries statistical community to continue to disregard, ignore or downplay this growing body of global work.

Some other criticism that made the assumption that all the reconstruction work was done from Canada (where the Sea Around Us is headquartered) also points to a clear lack of proper prior research from those who raised this point. The Sea Around Us worked with over 400 co-authors from 200 countries. Dyhia’s work alone requires her to spend over 50% of her time working on active engagement with our partners in West Africa. The diversity of the panel participants, including from The Gambia and The Bahamas (apparently their first ever participation at COFI) talking about catch reconstructions was very informative by itself.

As part of our engagement, Dyhia also held direct discussions with FAO staff to hopefully help dispel the lingering misconceptions about the methods used to derive the reconstructed catch data. After all, we often are able to use classical catch data estimation methods to ‘reconstruct’ catches. For example, in The Gambia we merely multiply data on fishing effort by a typical catch assessed for that kind of effort. The Gambia is currently re-assessing its artisanal fisheries using the catch reconstruction method to submit to the FAO these new data, corrected backwards in time. Both The Gambia and The Bahamas will be following up by including data resulting from catch reconstructions as part of their next data submission to FAO, a huge step for the countries and for the Sea Around Us.

This also led to a conversation about separating catch data by major fisheries sectors, namely small-scale and large-scale, which the Sea Around Us has applied to all countries in the world, in part in support of the FAO Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty, which was adopted at the last COFI meeting. This led to a conversation with the FAO team on fishing effort, and we will follow up on this. Hopefully one day, regional fisheries bodies, scientists and the general public will be able to access official data separated by sector, and thus better contribute to the public resource debate. We are hopeful that we will be able to collaborate with and assist FAO in the future. After all, we strive for the same goals.

Finally, The Bahamas made a statement on the main floor of COFI in support of the importance of considering reconstructed data as an alternative to ‘nothing’ in data reporting schemes.

Conclusion

This year’s COFI in Rome allowed the Sea Around Us to work with the FAO, member countries, and NGO’s to better understand the importance of catch reconstructions, which can help fill data gaps and provide a more accurate and comprehensive historical baseline for fisheries catches.