African fishing communities threatened with extinction with the growth of the blue economy :: Kenya

NAIROBI – Fishing communities along Africa's coastline are at greater risk of extinction as countries seek income for tourism, industrial fishing and exploration to revive their "blue economies", Monday said experts and UN activists.

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the continent's 38 coastal and island states have harnessed their ocean resources through commercial fishing, marine tourism and seabed mining.

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"There is a great risk and a great danger that these communities are marginalized," said Joseph Zelasney, head of fisheries at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). .

"The resources on which they depend will be decimated," he added at a side event at the Blue Economy Conference organized by Kenya, Canada and Japan in Nairobi.

The poorest continent in the world is home to a blue economy estimated at $ 1 trillion, but loses $ 42 billion a year due to illegal fishing and logging of mangroves along the coast, according to estimates by CEA.

Seismic waves generated by prospectors searching for minerals, oil and gas along the ocean floor have scared fish stocks, said Dawda Saine of the Confederation of African Artisbad Fisheries in The Gambia.

"Noise and vibration hunt fish, which means they (the fishermen) have to go farther to fish," Saine said.

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Pollution from a vibrant tourism sector and foreign trawlers has reduced stocks along the Indian Ocean, said Salim Mohamed, a fisherman from Malindi, Kenya.

"We suffer as artisbad fishermen, but all local regulations consider us a polluter and go no further," he said.

The continent's fish stocks are also being depleted by industrial trawlers seaming the oceans to feed the European and Asian markets, experts say, threatening the livelihoods and food security of neighboring communities.

The growth of blue economies in Africa could also remove common rights to land and water along the shoreline and transfer them to businesses and a few people, said Andre Standing, adviser to the Coalition for Agreements. equitable fishing.

Most of the land and beaches bordering thousands of kilometers of African coastline are untitled, making it a good target for illegal acquisitions, activists said.

"We are very concerned about the privatization of areas previously open to these communities," said Standing at the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"We must have a radical vision that values ​​communities and livelihoods, otherwise they will disappear."