APA-Maputo (Mozambique) The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has established a centre to coordinate the monitoring of illegal and unregulated fishing across the region, the bloc announced on Tuesday.
The organisation said the SADC Fisheries Monitoring Control and Surveillance Coordination Centre (MCSCC) would be housed in the Ministry of Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries in the Mozambican capital Maputo.
“The establishment of the MCSCC paves the way for coordinated measures to improve fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the SADC region,” SADC said.
The centre is expected to coordinate regional fisheries MCS data and information-sharing services, including creation of a regional fishing vessel register and monitoring system.
It would also be responsible for provision of regional fisheries surveillance and of fisheries law enforcement and legal support services.
IUU fishing is essentially the theft of marine resources, whereby international fishing vessels enter a country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and fish without licenses or use destructive fishing gear.
It is estimated that the region loses billions of dollars in revenues annually to IUU fishing.
IUU fishing flourishes because poor coastal countries do not have the capacity to monitor and control their respective EEZs.
In addition to severe revenue loss, IUU in the SADC region exacerbates food insecurity and threatens the livelihoods of coastal people dependent on the fishing industry.
IUU also accelerates environmental losses such as the collapse of fishing stocks and habitat destruction.
JN/APA