Plan to manage fisheries

Mr. Ishmael Ashitey, Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) in-charge of Fisheries, on Tuesday said his ministry had noted with dissatisfaction the illegal operation of trawlers in the In-shore Exclusive Zone (area shallower than 30 meters in depth) of the sea.

Such activities caused social and economic conflicts between industrial and in-shore vessel operators and other fishermen, Mr. Ashitey, told a National Workshop on Marine Fisheries Management Development Plan in Accra.

He said although PNDC Law 256 of 1991 was promulgated to address such problems within the Fisheries sector, the law had some limitations with regard to proactive fisheries management. It was therefore welcome news that the Fisheries Management Plan had been instituted as the new policy to manage fisheries in the country, he said.

The workshop was the third in a series of workshops planned to sensitise the public on the policy guidelines emanating from the Marine Fisheries Management Plan, drawn under the Fisheries Sub-Sector Capacity Building Project and supported with external assistance from the World Bank.

The fisheries law was reviewed because Ghana ratified the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which required Ghana to ensure the conservation and sustainable exploitation of the fisheries resources within the Economic Exclusive Zone (200 nautical miles of the sea from the shore).