By Laudia Sawer
Tema, July 29, GNA — The Canoe and Fishing Gear Owners Association of Ghana (CaFGOAG) has said that there is general compliance with the fishing closed season by artisanal fishers.
Nana Kweigyah, the President of CaFGOAG, disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview.
The closed season, which would end on July 31, 2024, commenced on July 1 with an official ceremony at Upper Dixcove in the Ahanta West Municipality by the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development.
Implementation of the closed season started in 2019 as part of measures to curb the depletion of Ghana’s fish stock and allow fish to spawn.
The two-month closed period for industrial fishermen and the one-month season for artisanal fishermen is backed by Section 84 of the Fisheries Act, 2002 (Act 625) which empowers the Ministry and the Fisheries Commission to declare a closed fishing season as a measure to ensure that fish spawn at least once in their lifetime before being caught by fishers.
Nana Kweigyah revealed that research assistants for the Creating Synergies between Indigenous Practices and Scientific Knowledge (ISIPSK) Sankofa Project observed that the fisheries closed season had been generally complied with by fishers in the communities visited.
The ISIPSK Sankofa Project, he said, was under the auspices of the University of Andrews School of Geography and Sustainable Development, in partnership with the Fisheries Commission (FC), Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC), and CaFGOAG, which engaged data collection assistants with coastal-fishing communities for data collection purposes.
He said the eight communities in the four coastal regions of Ghana visited during the closed season were Abeliakope (in Aflao) and Abutsiakope in the Volta Region, Akplabanya and Tema in the Greater-Accra Region, Apam and Cape-Coast in the Central Region, and Abuesi and Sekondi in the Western Region.
He commended the fishermen for their compliance and urged them to follow other regulations when the sea is open for fishing from August 1.
Nana Kweigyah said participants in the project were chief fishermen, fishing crew, canoe owners, fish processors, and traders, as well as other actors in the artisanal fisheries sector, such as input dealers and service providers.
The ISIPSK Sankofa project is aimed at investigating the gendered impacts of the fisheries’ closed season and advancing knowledge on indigenous practices that could be integrated into marine conservation activities to ensure sustainable fisheries.
According to the CaFGOAG president, the research team reported the active participation of fishermen who have shared insightful responses throughout the engagements, which took the form of surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews.
GNA