science forum day 1 - dave mills - reversing effort stampede in ghana's coastal fisheries
TRANSCRIPT
The challenges of
Reversing Effort Stampede in Ghana’s
Coastal Fisheries
“If we can crack this one……we can do
anything!”
Long-term vision: Ghana’s coastal and marine ecosystems are being developed and conserved in a sustainable manner—the goods and services produced by coastal ecosystems and fisheries are generating a diversity of long-term socio-economic benefits for coastal communities while sustaining biodiversity.
3 Phases:
1) information integration and analysis (Diagnosis)
2) build constituencies and capacity for an issue-driven approach to ICM and decentralized fisheries management
3) ‘learning by doing’ in policy reform and implementation
• Annual yield around 750,000 t• Just under half is marine• 84% from small-scale sector• Fish consumption: derived figures
23kg/person/yr – may be 40kg• 4.5% of GDP without value added
• Directly supports 1.5 million people• Employs around 375,000 of which
at least 150,000 are women
Ghanaian Fisheries Statistics (BNP)
Emphasis of WorldFish components
• Telling the ‘real stories’ of fishery status – beyond statistics
• Looking at indicators that will help tell real stories
• Fisher decision-making
• Value chain analysis
• Institutional analysis
• Capacity building
Our foot soldiers - NSVs
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0.2
0.4
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1.0
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1.4
1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008
CPUE (t/day at sea) for industrial vesselsCPUE (t/trip) for canoe and semi-insusstrials
artisanal
inshore
industrial
The real stories – what’s wrong with the CPUE data?
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5 yearsago
10 yearsago
Now(reference year)
Rela
tive
catc
h pe
r tr
ip
Artisanal fleet – what the fishers say!
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140ROUND SARDINE
FLAT SARDINE
CHUB MACKEREL
ANCHOVY
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Catch (x 1000 t) Change in recorded landings – small pelagics
Fleet change - canoes
Back to basics - re-entering raw data
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800Av CPUE -Trips (as per current database)
Adjusted for net length
CPU
E (k
g/tr
ip)
-Av CPUE hrs
4
8
12
16
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24
CPUE (Kg/hour)
An example of problems if change is ignored
Dixcove DGN catches
Changing fishing practices – technology development
Ghanaian fishers are innovators by nature – a long history shows us this
Potentially has a huge impact on catch statistics
Light fishing increases ‘effective effort’ massively
There is no allowance for this in the current system
Technology and operational changes need to be monitored as part of any data system
Canoes adopting light fishing(data from our surveys)
Effort creep indicators
• Boats are getting bigger!
• Engines are getting larger
• Nets are getting longer (doubled since 1980)
• Mesh sizes are getting smaller
• Monofilament gill net now dominated
• Distance to fishing grounds 2.2 times greater in 10 years
22 ft 2-man canoePaddles
26 ft 3-man canoe8 hp outboard
Vessel power increase
Fishing with bottomset net
Added Tenga netFishing power increase
Purchased cell phoneTechnology adoption
CPUE(effective)
Timeline
CPUE(pans/day)
Effort creep: One man’s story
Ghana trawlersStandardise Samples by TotalTransform: Fourth rootResemblance: S17 Bray Curtis similarity
Similarity8570
19731974
1975
1976
19771978
19791981
1982
1983
19841985
19861987
1988
1989
1990
19911992
19931994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
20002001
2002
2003
20042005
2006
2007
2008
2D Stress: 0.06
Evidence of stress – thresholds
1972-1988
1989-1997
1998-2008
Evidence of stress – thresholdsThe “green-green”• Filamentous algal bloom• Started 10-15 years ago• Present for several months most years now• Huge issue for fishermen
4 distinct phases recognised1 – Colonial fisheries management2 – From traditional to centralised management
•Fisheries regulation LI364 introduced in 1964
•Focus was on providing an administrative framework rather than limiting effort
3 – Decentralisation•Many formally centralised government functions were shifted to DAs, which were formed in 1988/89
4– Co-management tested•CBFMC initiated under World Bank program•Decentralisation largely failed in the attempt to generate stakeholder participation
•133 CBFMCs formed and constitutions adopted by Das•Most collapsed soon after, with a few being revived (FON, SFLP)
Institutional and legal change
• Fishery that is clearly in crisis
• All indicators heading the wrong way
• Massive over capacity in all fleets
• Political interference
• HUGE reliance on subsidies (premix) - canoes
• Burnt fingers from past CBFM implementation
• NO spatial definition – migration and fisher behaviour
• Nearly all large canoes and semi-industrials use lights
• Limited capacity in all areas
What ‘raw materials’ are we left with?
• Some sectors of the fishery very keen for change
• Strong political voice
• Strong history of innovation
• Fairly intact traditional institutions
• Lessons from past failures
What ‘raw materials’ are we left with?
• Subsidies may be ‘too hot to handle’ for now
• Strong emphasis on capacity building required
• Creating multi-tiered governance framework
• Positive deviance model – exposure trips to success stories in the region
• Continue to push the ‘resilience’ story – still hard to get away from sectoral approaches
• World Bank program
Moving forwards
THANKS
Reasons for the collapse of CBFM in Ghana
• absence of a constitution to regulate/enforce tenure of office
• lack of or irregular meetings and poor attendance
• members of the committee using illegal fishing gear
• lack of monitoring/supervision of the committees
• no motivation /incentives and dissipation of funds and belligerency of some chief fishermen
• lack of supply of inputs at subsidized rates and inability of committees to be in charge of inputs distribution
• lack of funds for operational costs & equipment for work
Braimah, 2009 “Lessons from previous experience of co management initiatives in fisheries in Ghana (prepared for the WB)”