*****************************************************
Culled form the BBC.

This is yet another manifestation of the west's disregard for other peoples.
I hope that Jammeh's government will take steps to safeguard our already
depleted fish stocks.
Over fishing is not allowed in Europe, why should we accept it, or are we
forever doomed to the west's exploitation?
British and Scandinavian fishermen are paid by the EU not to fish in most areas
of the North Sea so as enable to fish stock to recover,but when  it comes to us
(Africans) they do not seem to give a toss, and sadly we have idiots all over
our continent who hijacked our nations and whether out of sheer ignorance or
greed are colluding with the west and Japanese and Korean fishing companies in
totaly depleting our already depleted fish stocks. It has to stop!!

I hope The Gambian fisheries dept/ministry in collaboration ofcourse
with his counterparts in the sisterly countires take action pronto for if not
it might be too late!These wankers have to be stopped in their desregard of our
people, their wantom destruction of our "meagre" natural resources, and then
the turning around to smile at us and give us pittance in foriegn aid.

NB:-The current state of world affairs and the double standards is really
making my blood boil, and am sure it came across as such in this commentary.

Regards
Manneh
*********************************************************


A good catch of tuna: But critics say far too many fish are thrown back

By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

Campaigners say European Union (EU) boats are wasting West Africa's rich
fishing resources by discarding most of their catch.
They say what is happening proves that developing countries should keep their
fish to themselves.

They base their claims on a study of the problems of coastal fishermen in
Senegal.

The study, by the Television Trust for the Environment (TVE), is the basis of
the first film in the Trust's new Earth Report series, shown on BBC World.

Foreign boats have been fishing in Senegalese waters for more than 20 years,
catching huge quantities of shrimp, tuna and now sardines.

 Click here to watch BBC World and its report on fishing off Senegal.

The film, A Fish Too Far, says EU boats were among the first foreign vessels to
obtain licences to fish off Senegal.

Nothing gets away

But it says the situation soon became an unsustainable free-for-all, with
industrial fishing destroying the country's most valuable resource.


Africa's fish fill Europe's stomachs

Foreign fishing methods soon began to destroy West Africa's delicate marine
ecology.

Brian O'Riordan works with a campaign group, the International Collective in
Support of Fish Workers, based in Belgium.

He says: "The ecosystem in tropical waters is very fragile, and very vulnerable
to the industrial trawling techniques used by the EU.

"This has been described as being akin to clear-felling in a forest. They're
catching everything now, the small fish, the uneconomic fish.

"So out of the catch they make, possibly they keep anything between 10 and 20%.
But anything from 80-90% is chucked back in the water dead.

"And very often these are the fish that form the backbone of the artisanal
fishery. Not only are the trawlers clear-felling, they're also turning the
ecosystem into a kind of waste dump."

Steffan Smidt, director-general for fisheries of the European Commission,
denies this.

Feeding the rich

He tells the TVE crew: "We always take resources which are commensurate with
the needs of sustainability, and our vessels are subject to rules covering the
number and nature of their nets, the mesh sizes, and other technicalities.

"I think overall what we are able to catch is only something like 7% of what
you can take within Senegalese waters."


European trawlers rule Africa's seas

Another contributor, Helene Bours of Greenpeace International, told TVE of the
damage caused by boats sailing under a flag of convenience.

She said: "It means that unknown quantities of fish are being caught in all
kinds of African waters and exported to industrialised countries like the EU
and Japan.

"The fishing resources are stolen from them, effectively, and not just from the
countries, but from the fishing communities who depend on them. If they stop
fishing, they die."

TVE says Senegal's experience confirms the findings of a recent report by the
United Nations Environment Programme.

That concluded that coastal countries which open their waters to foreign
fishing fleets lose billions of dollars, far more than they can hope to gain.

Last January the European Commission failed to secure an extension to a fishing
rights accord which had allowed European vessels to fish Senegalese waters
since 1997.

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