Puntland Outlaws Illegal Fishing Practices

[Deeq A.]

Haga: “It is deplorable that some people from coastal areas in Puntland strike deals with foreign trawlers to receive a paltry 5% of the profits made from fishing, oblivious to the risk to marine life and the environment.”

Garowe (PP News Desk) — The Puntland Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources yesterday publicised measures to combat illegal fishing. In a decree signed by Abdirizak Abdullahi Haga, the Fisheries Minister, coastal regional and district authorities were instructed to enforce the new policy aimed at combating illegal fishing and domestic fishing practices that harm sea life and the marine environment.

The decree banned fishing for turtles, gulper sharks and fish in their reproductive cycle. It also prohibited the removal and exportation of coral reefs, the cutting of mangroves for commercial purposes, the use of powerful flashlights that harm fish, the widespread use of plastic fishing nets and fishing nets with mesh sizes smaller than 50mm.

The implementation of the ministerial decree faces hurdles.

“It is deplorable that some people from coastal areas in Puntland strike deals with foreign trawlers to receive a paltry 5% of the profits made from fishing, oblivious to the risk to marine life and the environment,” said the Minister, who briefed the media on the new ministerial policy. His remarks have added pressure on the Puntland President, whose administration is seeking ways to comply with the instructions from the Somalia Financial Governance Committee to declare revenues from fishing licences awarded to foreign companies on behalf of the Puntland State of Somalia. The implementation of the new policy faces hurdles, given the absence of auditing practices to hold line ministry officials accountable for fishing licences awarded without notifying Puntland’s Auditor General’s Office.

In June 2022, the Puntland Parliament found that “fishing agreements have resulted in illegal fishing and the depletion of fish in Somali seas. Authorities that issue fishing licences have no mechanisms to determine if grantees have violated the terms of the agreement.”

© Puntland Post, 2024

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