EU’s unsustainable fisheries in West Africa

Along the West African coasts, EU fishing is contributing to reduced fish stocks and increased difficulties for local fish workers to earn a living.

To Draw the Line, a new report from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) blames the Swedish government for playing a notably passive role in the development of, and during negotiations within the Fisheries Partnership Agreements.

The European Commission claims but cannot ensure that the payments for these agreements contribute to sustainable development and the implementation of domestic fisheries policy to the benefit of coastal communities. To Draw the Line report demonstrates that they do not.

Fish stocks in Europe are depleted. Fish stocks off Western Africa are, according to the UN advisory committee CECAF, also typically depleted, overfished or of unknown status. Nevertheless, the EU continues to buy fishing rights from a number of West African coastal states. The external dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) costs European taxpayers pay 130 million euro. This money supports fishing in the waters of developing countries by vessels of predominantly Spanish origin. The exploitation of coastal bottom-dwelling stocks is mainly carried out by trawling and without quotas. The EU claims that 25 percent of the payments are contributing to sustainable development in the contracting state.

Reduced food security for the poor

According to Mikael Karlsson, President of SSNC, “the risk of an ecological disaster is imminent. EU is literally taking the food out of the hands of the local people. Depleted fish stocks may never recover and EU is contributing to a situation where millions of people will have to seek new livelihoods elsewhere.”
SSNC has examined how the Swedish government, the current as wells as the previous, has dealt with these agreements. To Draw the Line shows that the government deliberately has.

“The Swedish government has chosen not to involve in negotiation process and ignored the fact that the EU fisheries off the coast of West Africa is unsustainable”, says Mikael Karlsson.

Paper fish – a questionable surplus

Given a documented surplus of fish in a country’s exclusive economic zone, and given that someone is asking to buy it, the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) requires the owner of the surplus to sell the fishing rights. However, the existence of a surplus remains hard to determine, particularly in countries with unsatisfactory monitoring and extensive illegal fishing. In addition, ecosystem effects of the various fisheries are rarely considered.

The authors of the report visited Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Guinea (Conakry) in order to learn more about these agreements and how they are perceived by fish workers, civil society organisations, researchers, civil servants and politicians. Another aim was to find out if and how the EU payments are contributing to sustainable development and the implementation of the domestic fisheries policy, as requested in the country-specific agreement protocols. The results of the investigation were disheartening.

How the payments are used by contracting states

“Naturally, the payments end up in these poor countries’ state treasuries”, says Kajsa Garpe, Program Officer for fisheries at SSNC’s International department. “In three out of four countries we found no evidence that money was being spent on the development of local fisheries management. Fish workers and coastal communities do not see any benefits of these agreements whatsoever. On the contrary, both their fish catches and their opportunities for trade and economic development are diminishing. Instead of being prioritised, food security which is threatened in the region.”

Moreover the EU Commission cannot explain how they control that payments are used towards the implementation of the domestic fisheries policy. As a matter of fact, the Commission rejected several of SSNC’s requests for information and documents, despite the often-mentioned transparency of the fisheries agreements.

 To Draw the Line concludes that the external dimension of EU’s Common Fisheries Policy is a failure. These so called partnership agreements have little to do with partnership and sustainable development, while at the same time preventing other policies to take responsibility for fishieries as a means of achieving economic development and poverty reduction.  In 2012 EU member states are to decide on a new common fisheries policy. To Draw the Line explains the current reform process and provides policy recommendations for those that wish to get involved.

Right now a window of opportunity has re-opened for politicians in Sweden and other member states. Given sufficient political will, partnership agreements with respect to fisheries could become both sustainable and fair in the near future.