The challenges of

Reversing Effort Stampede in Ghana’s

Coastal Fisheries

“If we can crack this one……we can do

anything!”

Long-term vision: Ghana’s coastal and marine ecosystems are being developed and conserved in a sustainable manner—the goods and services produced by coastal ecosystems and fisheries are generating a diversity of long-term socio-economic benefits for coastal communities while sustaining biodiversity.

3 Phases:

1) information integration and analysis (Diagnosis)

2) build constituencies and capacity for an issue-driven approach to ICM and decentralized fisheries management

3) ‘learning by doing’ in policy reform and implementation

• Annual yield around 750,000 t• Just under half is marine• 84% from small-scale sector• Fish consumption: derived figures

23kg/person/yr – may be 40kg• 4.5% of GDP without value added

• Directly supports 1.5 million people• Employs around 375,000 of which

at least 150,000 are women

Ghanaian Fisheries Statistics (BNP)

Emphasis of WorldFish components

• Telling the ‘real stories’ of fishery status – beyond statistics

• Looking at indicators that will help tell real stories

• Fisher decision-making

• Value chain analysis

• Institutional analysis

• Capacity building

Our foot soldiers - NSVs

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The real stories – what’s wrong with the CPUE data?

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Artisanal fleet – what the fishers say!

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FLAT SARDINE

CHUB MACKEREL

ANCHOVY

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Catch (x 1000 t) Change in recorded landings – small pelagics

Fleet change - canoes

Back to basics - re-entering raw data

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An example of problems if change is ignored

Dixcove DGN catches

Changing fishing practices – technology development

Ghanaian fishers are innovators by nature – a long history shows us this

Potentially has a huge impact on catch statistics

Light fishing increases ‘effective effort’ massively

There is no allowance for this in the current system

Technology and operational changes need to be monitored as part of any data system

Canoes adopting light fishing(data from our surveys)

Effort creep indicators

• Boats are getting bigger!

• Engines are getting larger

• Nets are getting longer (doubled since 1980)

• Mesh sizes are getting smaller

• Monofilament gill net now dominated

• Distance to fishing grounds 2.2 times greater in 10 years

22 ft 2-man canoePaddles

26 ft 3-man canoe8 hp outboard

Vessel power increase

Fishing with bottomset net

Added Tenga netFishing power increase

Purchased cell phoneTechnology adoption

CPUE(effective)

Timeline

CPUE(pans/day)

Effort creep: One man’s story

Ghana trawlersStandardise Samples by TotalTransform: Fourth rootResemblance: S17 Bray Curtis similarity

Similarity8570

19731974

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2D Stress: 0.06

Evidence of stress – thresholds

1972-1988

1989-1997

1998-2008

Evidence of stress – thresholdsThe “green-green”• Filamentous algal bloom• Started 10-15 years ago• Present for several months most years now• Huge issue for fishermen

4 distinct phases recognised1 – Colonial fisheries management2 – From traditional to centralised management

•Fisheries regulation LI364 introduced in 1964

•Focus was on providing an administrative framework rather than limiting effort

3 – Decentralisation•Many formally centralised government functions were shifted to DAs, which were formed in 1988/89

4– Co-management tested•CBFMC initiated under World Bank program•Decentralisation largely failed in the attempt to generate stakeholder participation

•133 CBFMCs formed and constitutions adopted by Das•Most collapsed soon after, with a few being revived (FON, SFLP)

Institutional and legal change

• Fishery that is clearly in crisis

• All indicators heading the wrong way

• Massive over capacity in all fleets

• Political interference

• HUGE reliance on subsidies (premix) - canoes

• Burnt fingers from past CBFM implementation

• NO spatial definition – migration and fisher behaviour

• Nearly all large canoes and semi-industrials use lights

• Limited capacity in all areas

What ‘raw materials’ are we left with?

• Some sectors of the fishery very keen for change

• Strong political voice

• Strong history of innovation

• Fairly intact traditional institutions

• Lessons from past failures

What ‘raw materials’ are we left with?

• Subsidies may be ‘too hot to handle’ for now

• Strong emphasis on capacity building required

• Creating multi-tiered governance framework

• Positive deviance model – exposure trips to success stories in the region

• Continue to push the ‘resilience’ story – still hard to get away from sectoral approaches

• World Bank program

Moving forwards

THANKS

Reasons for the collapse of CBFM in Ghana

• absence of a constitution to regulate/enforce tenure of office

• lack of or irregular meetings and poor attendance

• members of the committee using illegal fishing gear

• lack of monitoring/supervision of the committees

• no motivation /incentives and dissipation of funds and belligerency of some chief fishermen

• lack of supply of inputs at subsidized rates and inability of committees to be in charge of inputs distribution

• lack of funds for operational costs & equipment for work

Braimah, 2009 “Lessons from previous experience of co management initiatives in fisheries in Ghana (prepared for the WB)”