The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has reported that rise in Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is at the centre of a crisis of food sustainability in West African coastal waters. Ms. Bintia Stephen-Tchicaya, an FAO Representative ad interim, made this known during the 23rd annual fishing committee in Liberia. Stephen-Tchicaya stated that current rates of extraction were driving several species towards extinction while jeopardising the livelihoods of local fishing communities across Senegal, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Mauritania.

She said nowhere is that cri- sis more visible than in western Africa. The FAO noted that the menace was threatening food security in the West African region in the area of fishing as the unauthorised business is driving several species towards extinction. The FAO Representative named some of the many challenges that exist in West Africa’s fishing area of competence as, ensuring that fisheries continue to contribute to food security and livelihoods for all, improving the management of shared and migratory stocks on the high seas, as well as in coastal sovereign waters, increase the resilience of coastal communities and ending illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.