The CECAF region is among the world’s major fishing grounds. Annual catches in the northern part of the region are around 2.6 million tons, with a landed value of around $500 million (Everett1).
1 Everett, G. V. An overview of the state of fishery development and planning in the CECAF region. Project for the Development of Fisheries in the Eastern Central Atlantic. CECAF/ECAF Series/75/4 (EN). Rome, FAO/UNDP, October 1976.While the information, especially statistics, from some fleets, is not yet adequate to make accurate assessments of the state of most of the resources in the region, it is known that several stocks, including some of the most valuable (e.g., cephalopods) are heavily fished. As a rough guide to the possible benefits of management, it might be supposed that, apart from the possibilities of greater catches from increasing fishing effort on the more lightly exploited stocks, proper management, e.g., by adopting appropriate mesh sizes and adjusting the amount of fishing on each stock of the more heavily exploited stocks, might lead to an increase of perhaps 5 percent in the total catch. Also, these catches could be taken with less fishing and the possible extent of this reduction might be fairly conservatively estimated as 10 percent (a reduction of as much as 70 percent has been noted as being desirable for the northern stocks of hake). In principle a 10 percent reduction in effort should lead to an equivalent of 10 percent reduction in the costs of fishing. Adding these figures together gives an estimate of the net benefits that could accrue from good management of some $75 million annually. In the absence of management action, it can be expected that the wastage through excess effort, and reductions in total catch will increase; further, these estimates do not take account of the possibility that there could be collapses of some major pelagic stocks similar to those of the Californian sardine, Atlanto-Scandian herring or Peruvian anchovy, which seems to have occurred already in the Ghanaian-Ivorian sardinella stocks, and that such collapses might be wholly or partially averted by timely management measures. Further, a crude economic statement of potential benefits does not take account of the degree to which appropriate management can achieve a better distribution of the benefits from the fisheries between countries and within countries.
These facts are not new. It has been generally recognized for a decade or more that at least some of the more valuable stocks were being overexploited, and that management was desirable. Nevertheless, little has been done. The only management measure that has been recommended internationally is the use of a 70 mm mesh in the fishery for hake and sea-bream. Though this was recommended by the CECAF Sub-Committee on the Implementation of Management measures in 1972, the meshes now being used in the hake fisheries, as reported to the CECAF Working Party on Hake, range from 30 up to 65 mm. More significant, in terms of effective controls on the fisheries in the region, are the numerous bilateral agreements between individual coastal states and fishing countries from outside the region, but these have not been established as part of a general resource management plan.
The reasons for this failure to achieve effective management are clear. Until recently most stocks could be caught, to a greater or lesser extent, outside the limits of current national jurisdictions. Each stock was harvested by a number of countries, both coastal and non-local, and until all the countries concerned reach agreement on the need for management and on the specific measures to be introduced, no action could be taken. If some countries had introduced measures in the absence of general agreement, the benefits from such measures would have mostly gone to those countries which did not abide by such measures. Agreement was made still harder to reach because of the lack of clear scientific advice on the state of many of the resources. This lack in turn was largely due to the inadequacies in the statistics made available by some of the main participants in the fisheries.
Even when agreement was reached, for example on the need for larger meshes in the hake and sea-bream fisheries, the absence of effective arrangements for the enforcement of the measures, including means for each country to be assured that the other countries were abiding by the agreements, had the result that fishermen did not follow the recommendations. This is what happened in the case of the recommendation for the use of larger meshes when trawling for hake or sea-bream.
The general extensions of limits of national jurisdiction over fisheries is changing this situation. There is now the opportunity to introduce effective management. While this opportunity arises from the assumption of jurisdiction by the coastal states, an assumption that brings with it also the responsibilities to manage the resource, the benefits need not accrue only to these states. Failure to manage, and the resultant development of costly excess effort, has been as damaging (or even more damaging) to the countries operating the large distant water fleets as it has been to the coastal states. A more rational pattern of fishing should produce sufficient economic and other benefits so that all participants in the fishery will be better off than they are at present, even though it can be expected that the greater share of the benefits will go to the coastal states.
The improved opportunities arise because management decisions can be taken by individual coastal states, or, in the case of those stocks shared by more than one state, by a relatively small number of coastal states acting in consultation.
There is no need to reach a voluntary agreement with all the actual or potential participants in the fishery, some of whom will often believe that it is in their interest (at least in the short term) to avoid agreement. Further, having jurisdiction, the coastal state can, at least in principle, ensure that all participants abide by any management arrangements that are introduced.
Successful management will still not be easy. It is not just a matter of introducing measures to control the amount of fishing or the type of fish caught. The measures have to be chosen so that they will in fact have the effects, both immediate and long term, that are hoped for. This requires the following series of actions:
(i) a scientific assessment of the state of the resources and of the effects of different measures on the resources and the catches from them;To carry through all these activities, and to achieve a rational utilization of the resources will be an enormous task. Some of the specific actions that will be needed are described in the following sections, in which particular attention is given to the potential role of the CECAF Project in providing specialized advice (e.g., through consultants), arranging for technical or other meetings, etc.(ii) an analysis of the economic, social and other consequences, in the short and long term, of possible actions;
(iii) for those stocks that are, or can be, caught in more than one jurisdiction, agreement between the states concerned on the general measures to be taken, e.g., on the level of the total allowable catch, and the shares of this to be taken by individual participants;
(iv) for all stocks, decisions by individual countries on the detailed and specific measures that should be taken, including those needed to implement the multilateral agreements concerning shared resources;
(v) implementation of appropriate legal and other actions to ensure compliance with the measures decided upon. These must include arrangements whereby all those concerned with shared stocks can be assured that the other participants are complying with the agreements.
Assessment of the resources will presumably be done in the CECAF area, as in most other regions, through specialized working parties, based mainly on the work of scientists in the institutions of individual countries. Project support will mainly be to supplement, as necessary, these national studies, arrange for certain activities, e.g., processing of catch and effort statistics, that are best done centrally, and provide facilities for meetings of the working parties, including where needed, travel of participants.
Analysis of economic effects needs to be done at the national level, taking account of particular national factors. Decision makers in each country need to know what the effects of possible action will be in that country, rather than the general effects. Nevertheless, general studies will be useful as a basis for more detailed national studies. The CECAF Project could assist by arranging for these general studies, e.g., through consultants, as well as in providing assistance to individual countries for national studies.
Negotiations on coordinated measures to be taken in respect of stocks available to more than one country are matters for those governments. The opportunities for immediate support from the project are probably limited to providing facilities for any meetings that may be necessary. However, these meetings and negotiations are much more likely to be productive if good background material on the immediate and long-term effects of different actions and of the technical problems involved in implementation are available. Here, as discussed in the previous paragraphs, there are considerable opportunities for effective project input.
Similarly, decisions on national actions will be taken nationally and the main function of the project will be to ensure that the national decision-makers have available to them the necessary information on which to make correct decisions. This information again basically concerns the effects - biological, economic and others - of possible actions.
The implementation of management measures is an aspect of management that has been comparatively neglected. It has sometimes seemed to be assumed that if a measure is recommended, or if it is included in legislation, then the fishermen will behave accordingly. As the history of the CECAF recommendation on mesh size shows, this is not necessarily true. In practice, provisions for inspection and enforcement are a necessary and often expensive part of any national or multinational management, and the ease and expense of enforcing different measures and of enabling them to be seen to be enforced, can be important considerations in the choice between different measures. While relatively little is known about these problems in the CECAF area, considerable experience has been built up in recent years in other areas (e.g., in North America) as regards enforcement and inspection both at the national level and between coastal states and long-distance fishing fleets. The project could be of considerable assistance to CECAF countries by making such experience available, for example through consultant reports.
Tuna presents special problems. To a very large extent the tuna fisheries are independent of the other fisheries in the CECAF area, except to the degree to which the baitboats catch small pelagic species for bait. Most of the international questions of statistics, scientific research and management are handled by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which has established an active programme in these fields, and the CECAF Project should not attempt to duplicate this programme. There are opportunities for cooperation between CECAF and ICCAT, which have already been grasped, e.g., in the training courses on statistics and stock assessment. In addition, there might be suitable opportunities for the project to assist the coastal states, especially in the Gulf of Guinea, to establish a common policy regarding the management of these resources, which could be put forward within ICCAT. Such a common policy by the coastal states would seem to be particularly desirable in the light of the changes taking place in the Law of the Sea.
