January marked the successful completion of the Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Project’s electronic monitoring pilot program in Ghana. A celebration was organised by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development of the Republic of Ghana with representatives from all stakeholders including the World wildlife Fund (WWF), international Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) and the Ghana Tuna Association (GTA) participating in the event. As part of the festivities, there was a formal transfer of the equipment from the project to the Ghanaian authorities.
Starting back in 2015, the aim of the project was to develop an effective implementation process at the national level, so that information generated by the then recently deployed Electronic Monitoring Systems (EMS) was fully utilised for compliance purposes reducing Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. The project had two parts, firstly, installing the new EMS aboard five tuna purse seine vessels, and secondly, the training of land observers to review the data collected. In the following three years, the entire fleet of 14 vessels was equipped with EMS and the land observers reviewed 94% of the 163 fishing trips undertaken. The successfully completion of this pilot has created greater transparency in the Ghanaian fishing industry.
Five years ago, Ghana was facing the problems of an EU yellow card which was impacting the hugely important tuna industry. Now they have improved transparency and are a leading example globally, says Lauren Spurrier, managing director for oceans at WWF. Both industry and governmental experts are also excited about the success of the EMS, as it allows the important fishing sector to access global markets. Electronic monitoring is set to continue in the Ghanaian tuna fishery.
