Reverse decision excluding artisanal fishermen from closed season – Prof Aggrey-Fynn

Professor Joseph Aggrey-Fynn, a Professor of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), has entreated government to reverse its decision excluding artisanal fishermen from the annual fishing closed season.

He said the exemption was not scientific and did not augur well for the replenishment efforts, as the artisanal fishermen also contributed significantly to the depletion of the fish stock.

Delivering his inaugural lecture, Prof Aggrey-Fynn insisted that efforts to replenish the country’s dwindling fish stock required the participation of all players.

“Closed season is for all categories of fishers but this year, we excluded the canoe fishermen. It is not the best because they are all part of the problem.

“We are not saying that they are causing the illegality, but they are part of the problem and so why do you have to take them out?” he queried.

Prof Aggrey-Fynn, also the Founding Director of the Institute for Oil and Gas, UCC, delivered his lecture on the topic: “Ghana’s declining fisheries resources: Reality or myth.”

He highlighted the contributions of the fisheries sector to the Ghanaian economy and food security, indicating that it contributed 1.2 per cent to the national GDP and provided 60 per cent of the annual protein needs.

However, he observed a fast depletion of the fish stock, particularly the sardinella species, due to overexploitation, poor fisheries management, and some climatic conditions.

Experts and policymakers have introduced the annual fishing closed season as a mitigation measure, but the implementation is characterised by pushbacks and complaints of hardship from fishing communities every year.

In spite of the inconvenience it brought to the fishers, Prof Aggrey-Fynn maintained that it was a necessary measure.

He acknowledged the poverty in many fishing communities and proposed that fishermen must be given supplementary livelihoods to reduce their dependency on fishing.

“If you go to some fishing communities, some of the fishermen are richer than us, the lecturers.

“But it is only a few of them who are making the money and so we have to give them some opportunities which will improve their lives,” he said.

Prof Aggrey-Fynn called for a change in taste for overexploited, overpriced, and endangered aquatic species like squid, shrimps, and snappers, to lesser-known but equally tasty fish species, to check the depletion.