On November 3, 2017, the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) pub­lished an article with the title ‘Ghana: Declining fishery stocks impacting coastal communities in Ghana.’

The EJN, created in 2004 to empower and enable journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively, is now a truly global network of reporters and media outlets.

The EJN piece in question, authored by Ghanaian journalist Shirley Asiedu-Addo, captures the illegal methods used in depleting the country’s fishery stocks and the impacts, including the suffer­ings being borne by fisherfolk and their families, the entire coastal communities, and the society at large.

In part, the article states: “Fisher communities in Ghana are getting poorer. The fishery stocks are at a frighteningly low level and experts say they are nearing a state of collapse. To make things worse, the government is essentially helpless in its efforts to control the continued practice of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing on the seas.”

Then it adds that for fear of losing the favour of the fisherfolk, successive governments have failed to address and alter the realities of the criminalities of the fishery industry.

It goes further to list the ills contributing to the depletion of the country’s fishery stocks as including an unregulated boat entry system, a free-for-all all to catch whatever remains; the use of car­bide, dynamite, and washing soap; and the practice of light fishing.

All these, according to the experts undermine the growth of the country’s fishery stocks as these methods catch even juvenile fishes which have not bred before.

At the time of publishing the article, fishery experts said as a re­sult of these IUU practices, Gha­na was losing over US$100,000 a day.

Since the government could not solve the problems, in 2021, the Environmental Justice Founda­tion, based in the United King­dom, published under the auspices of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) an equally disturbing piece with the title ‘At what cost? How Ghana is losing out in fishing arrangements with China’s distant water fleet”.

The piece introduces another subject, which is the expansion of coastal bottom trawling in West Africa, including Ghana, and rais­es serious concerns about it.

The publication states that in addition to the highly-destruc­tive environmental footprint the bottom trawling leaves behind, the crews involved in the practice generate conflicts with small-scale fishers; and engage in illegal activities.

It is said that China is the lead­ing player in West Africa’s bottom trawling fishery.

What is worrying in the case of Ghana is that 90 percent of trawlers operating in the country are beneficially owned by Chinese corporations yet they fly the coun­try’s flags despite a prohibition against foreign ownership or control of trawlers doing so.

It is sad to learn that these Chi­nese vessels operate through local front companies, using opaque corporate structures to import their vessels, register and obtain a licence to fish.

Just yesterday, the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Devel­opment reported that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would be providing $ 24 million in funding to restore the country’s coastal fisheries.

The Ministry particularly said the restoration would focus on improving ocean conservation along the coast areas, as well as drive positive change across the entire fisheries value chain.

Even though the expression “drive positive change across the entire fisheries value chain” is vague, the Ghanaian Times wants to believe that the implementation of that “positive change” would not leave out addressing the issues raised in the two articles alluded to in this piece, including enacting laws to check both existing and emerging challenges in the fishery industry.

After all, the essence must be to improve the industry, which mas­sively serves as a source of food and livelihood to Ghanaians.