The Distant Water Fishing Vessels (DWFVs)

The Distant Water Fishing Vessels (DWFVs) project is a collaboration between Nature Today, CEMLAWS Africa and University of Cape Coast among others. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of State.

Foreign-owned distant water fishing vessels (DWFVs) in the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) and Mauritanian waters significantly benefit from unsustainable exploitation and inadequate control of ocean resources in the region. The destabilising impacts of these foreign DWF vessels in the GoG and Mauritania include depleting fish stocks; illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; and negative effects in livelihood of artisanal fishers. West Africa alone loses on average about 790,000 tons of fish a year to IUU fishing by foreign and domestic industrial fishing vessels, resulting in economic losses and income impacts of over $2 billion annually.

There is growing awareness of IUU fishing activities and the destabilizing effects of DWFV in the GoG and the need for GoG countries and their respective coastal communities to take greater control of their ocean resources and its governance. While there have been attempts to improve national ocean governance schemes, particularly to align fishing practices with global best standards, this project falls under a program which focuses on a novice and comprehensive approach by improving economic governance, inclusive economic growth, and prosperity so coastal communities and local fishing industries can strategically compete with foreign actors who undertake unsustainable fishing in the regions.

The project objectives are:

1. Increase CSO monitoring, media reporting, and public awareness of the destabilizing influences of distant water fishing vessels
2. Deepen Monitoring, Control and Surveillance capabilities, and enhance sharing of actionable fishing information and intelligence
3. Enhance transparency and accountability in the distant water fishing governance sector
4. Promote resilient domestic/regional fishing industry

To achieve these objectives, the main activities being implemented in seven different countries: Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal, and Sierra Leone include:

• Train community actors, CSOs and media outlets to monitor and report on the fishing activities of foreign distant water vessels, and governments’ fishing-related decisions and developments
• Raise public awareness on conservation and sustainable use of marine resources, and foreign malign actions in the marine space and regional government’s fishing-related decision-making, enforcement and prosecutorial actions
• Engage parliament and high-level stakeholders on the deleterious impacts of the activities of DWFVs for policy and legal reforms
• Enhance Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) capacity and capability to increase enforcement against IUU fishing activities
• Expand partnerships with state and local governments, industry, and non-traditional stakeholders to share actionable fishing intelligence information
• Develop training modules for capacity development in fisheries enforcement to increase participation of state and non-state actors to combat IUU fishing
• Analyze data on capacity and resource needs for transforming and repositioning the sector for greater local ownership
• Develop a strategic plan for enhancing local industrial capacity to replace DWFVs