Fisher Folks celebrate World Fisheries Day with Far Ban BoProject Team

The Chiefs and People of Dixcove in the Ahanta West District in the Western Region have celebrated this years World Fisheries Day with a mini but colourful durbar.

The day, which was celebrated on the theme " Combating IUU,the role of stakeholders" coincided with visit of the European Union Delegation which has oversight responsibility over the Far Ban Bo Project to Dixcove to interact with the community.

The durbar brought together community members who are mostly engaged in fishing activities directly or indirectly. Short speeches from the EU team led by Roberto Schiliro the fisheries commission, fisheries enforcement unit, marine police and the Far Ban Bo project team were read.

Addressing the durbar, the programmes manager of Friends of the Nation, implementing partner of the Far Ban Bo project Kyei Yamoah said the celebration of the world Fisheries day was a very important day on the calendar of Fishing communities.

He noted that, the Fisheries sector is a major source of livelihood which support food security.

Added that, the development and success of the sector leads to an improvement of the local economy.

Mr Kyei Yamoah therefore urged the fisher folks to allow juvenile fishes to grow before they are caught.He explained that catching of the juvenile fishes is a major cause of the dwindling of the Marine stick in recent times.

He then encouraged the fishermen to embrace the closed season policy and adopt the co management system to sustain their source of livelihood and desist from using illegal methods in fishing.

The leader of the EU delegation which was on a verification visit to the Far Ban Bo project, Roberto Schiliro said Fisheries is a very important sector providing many benefits to Ghanaians in several ways like food and nutrition, employment, income and foreign exchange.

He added that in spite of all those benefits, the sector is experiencing some challenges that are contributing to the gradual decline of the sector resulting in low landings and increasing poverty of the coastal communities.

Mr Schiliro added that the too many fishing vessels with unrestricted access,weak governance amongst others has been some of the factors for the decline.He therefore appealed to the Fisher folks to be mindful of the important benefits of the industry and work hard together to sustain it.

The Omanhene of Upper Dixcove traditional area Obrempong Heman Dekyi said illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) has become a global threat to the world Fisheries .He added that in Ghana it has been identified as one of the major contributing accounting for the massive decline of the fishing stock. According to him,the cascading effect of this on the over 3 million Ghanaians whose livelihood depend on fishing cannot be overemphasized.

Obrempong Hema Dekyi encouraged the EU and the project partners to continue to involve the traditional authorities in addressing the challenges confronting the fisheries sector.