No alternative work during close fishing season - Fishermen lament

The scheduled date for the commencement of this year’s close fishing season draws near, fishermen at Tema Canoe Beach, say they are taking measures to stock food for their families during the period.

The fishermen told the Ghana News Agency that the one-month fishing season turned them into temporarily unemployed people, as there was no alternative work for them to engage in.

They noted that the Chemu Lagoon, which used to provide them with other sources of fishing, was currently so polluted with industrial waste, turning the water dark and unfit to support any aquatic life.

Daniel Ofoetsu Setordzie, a canoe owner and fisherman, said because they had no alternative source of income during the period, they were using the days preceding the closed season to get some non-perishable food items such as rice and oil for the family to survive on.

On the support items often distributed by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture to the fishermen during the period, he said, “The government has only come to share five kilograms of rice and one litre of oil to us during the period; how many days will that take the family? If they increase the items, it will help a lot”.

Setordzie explained that the fishermen often used the period to mend their fishing nets and canoes, after which they stay idle until the season elapsed.

He expected increases in the price of fish on the market during the period, saying, currently ahead of the season, it had become expensive for them to go fishing due to the unavailability of premix fuel.

“Even we are not getting the needed premix to power our canoes for fishing, so a fish that needs to be sold at say GHS 50.00, I have to sell it higher than that because we do not get the subsidized fuel and have to pay more for fuel.

“Even now we have increased the price of a container of anchovies from GHS 200.00 upwards, which hitherto used to be GHS 60 to 80 cedis,” he added.

He suggested that the closed season should rather be in June, explaining that it was the period when fishes got the chance to lay their eggs to repopulate the sea.

Meanwhile, Madam Hawa Koomson, the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, had indicated during a press briefing that based on scientific recommendations, the closed season was being implemented as a stock recovery strategy.

The objectives were to reduce overfishing and high fishing pressure, recover overexploited fish stocks, rebuild depleted fish stocks, and replenish dwindling fish stocks.

Madam Koomson said ahead of the implementation of the closed season this year, the Ministry met with the leadership of all the fisheries associations, academia, and civil society organisations in April, to discuss the outcome of the 2022 closed season.

As part of the measures to curb illegal fishing, the Ministry deployed Electronic Monitoring Systems (EMS) equipped with a video recorder, a camera, and a Global Positioning System (GPS) on three trawl vessels on a pilot basis to record fishing activities on sea 24/7, she said.

The 2023 close season will take effect from July 01–31, 2023, for the artisanal and inshore fleets, while industrial trawlers will observe theirs between July 1 and August 31, 2023.