Mauritius fishermen on the edge as EU trawlers 'raid' local stocksBy LINLEY BIGNOUX in Port Louis | Wednesday, April 18   2012 at  11:14

When Judex Rampul talks rather mournfully of the ocean and the Mauritian lagoons, he knows what a renewed deal between the European Union and Mauritius portends for thousands of artisanal fishermen in the picturesque Indian Ocean island.

And according to Rampul, the president of the Mauritius Fishing Union, the news is not good at all.

"We are running out of time in these waters, all this is damaging the environment, nothing’s going to be left in our waters," he says, almost helplessly.

"We need to stop and think about how this is all affecting our community and Mauritians in general, the environment needs a chance to replenish, the European boats are just devastating everything, this sea is important to us," the unionist says.

Rampul and his band of once-merry union members' distress stems from an early February deal when the government and the EU renewed their vows governed by the bilateral Fishing Protocol Agreement (FPA).

Pay meagre fine

The renewed 2012-2015 agreement, retrieved from the bottom drawer where it had lain since 2007, states that only 86 boats are permitted to fish in the Mauritian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), coupled with a provision to employ ten local Mauritian artisanal fishermen, according to the Ministry of Fisheries.

In addition ,the deal with the EU gives rights of 5,500 tonnes of tuna per year, per boat, and with a provision that if they pass this tonnage, they will have to pay a meagre additional 65 euros per tonne, with the catch limit set at 11,000 tonnes per annum.

Simultaneously, the European Commission says in accordance to the deal, it will provide scientific, financial and technical assistance to the Mauritian government, apparently to spearhead the artisanal fishing industry.

But Rampul says not one fisherman has received any form of financial help in the small-scale industry and that it has been seven years since the first promises of such funds.

A promise by the Greek government to fund a local fish market for the fisherman in Port Louis at a cost of 24 million euros has not materialised yet.

Bleak outlook

Rampul says the future of the small scale fishermen is bleak as they compete for dwindling fish stocks with high-powered European fishing trawlers.

He says they have over the the past 15 years witnessed the steady depletion of fish resources such as the Blue fin Tuna and Yellow fin tuna, mainly due to overfishing by foreign vessels, mainly French, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian fishing vessels ones that crisscross the vast Mauritian EEZ in search of highly prized tuna.

Rising unemployment is now a reality among the fishermen, and many say that even if there were a market, there would be no stocks to meet the demand.

However, within the vast EEZ spanning 1.9 million square kilometres in the south-west Indian Ocean, an area equivalent to the size of Indonesia or a fifth the size of Canada, fishing has instead become a lucrative industry for the well-prepared Europeans.

Ahmed, Rampul's right hand man and the fishing union's secretary, faults their equipment.

"You know what the worst is, these purse seine nets the Europeans use, they are now going deeper and deeper, they [also] take as by catch even dolphin, turtles, and sharks; most of them are dead when they are thrown back into the water."

Falling rapidly

Much of the EEZ and the Mauritian lagoons are experiencing environmental degradation with fish stocks falling at a rapid rate, over the last decade, with current figures showing that 25 per cent of all fish stocks have already collapsed and another 25 per cent hanging in the balance.

Dolphin is considered by-catch by the European vessels and together with the fact the Mauritian government presently has no shark catch quotas, it becomes free game on the Mauritian EEZ high seas.

Currently, the amount of European commercial fishing vessels has reached an enormous amount, with around 300 boats operating in the EEZ every season, trawling for tuna and up to 1 million hooks plunged into the blue open waters of this island nation at any one time during any conferred year .

The reason that European fishing vessels are entering Mauritian waters to catch tuna is explicitly because fish stocks in their own countries are nearly all threatened or faced with accelerated extinction with some fish species in the red zone already.

The Mediterranean Sea is a clear example of their plight; its sea has been pilfered for over 30 years among pollution woes. Blue fin tuna, Albacore and Swordfish are threatened already, with 65 per cent of all fish stocks dangerously low, according to the European Environment Agency.

Burgeoning demand

The North Sea is becoming barren, overfished, with an unproductive fishing industry, and which has cost many jobs thus far. As demand outstrips supply, the burgeoning weight of consumer demand in European countries is hefty.

Currently fisheries in the Western Indian Ocean are at “collapsible” levels according to the World Wildlife Foundation, with the (IUCN) International Union for Conservation of Nature reporting that southern Bluefin tuna and Yellow fin tuna are overfished. Blue fin tuna is listed as “critically endangered.”

Oceanographer and Environmental engineer Vassen Kauppaymuthoo has studied the implementation of the European Union’s agreements with Mauritius, and interaction concerning environmental ocean degradation issues over the last seven years.

Vassen says that the EU has a specific and "real" strategic interest in Mauritius and that of Africa as a whole concerning the EEZ, stipulating that wider impacts on the environment and society in Mauritius are to follow when it comes to satisfying the “appetite” of large EU vessels.

He says that what the Mauritian government is basically doing is loaning out its EEZ to foreigners.

"These activities have had and they are still having a disastrous impact on the poor artisanal small scale fisherman in Mauritius and Africa; we are selling of these resources for peanuts, which we never see."

'Colonise the seas'

"These agreements should be questioned not only by countries, but also by also even more by groups of countries in order to have a larger bargaining power and dwindling transboundry pelagic fish resources should be protected in the Indian Ocean and around Africa," he says.

"The EU must understand that Africans and that of Mauritians will not let them colonise their seas ,like they did with lands proclaimed a few centuries ago and that their fish and within their huge oceans cannot be sold cheaply.”

"The oceans are part of the common property for present and future generations, can we justify EU fishing vessels taking our oceans for granted?"

Oser La Belle, a veteran fisherman of over 30 years says that the environmental degradation and the inconsistent fish catch he receives these days is a catastrophe, and is alarmed that the commercial industry as a whole, cannot sustain its appalling practices.

"At the moment a lot of fisherman can’t live on just their catch, they leave the industry, the cost of living is getting higher, they government is developing infrastructure for foreign vessels," he says.

Uncertain future

"The catches are extremely low compared to 10 years ago when we could make a proper living, and these ships are ruining the environment with their purse seine nets, they take everything.”

According to a Commonwealth Secretariat and Indian Ocean Commission report in 2007, the Indian Ocean continues to be a significant fishing region providing 23 per cent of the world’s tuna production.

With 962, 000 tonnes generated in the Western Indian Ocean alone. The strategic location of Mauritius in this portion of the ocean makes it an attractive place for tuna.

For Rampul, he is not sure what the future will hold for the environment, the country, and ultimately their families, 2015 is a long way ahead when the agreement ends-- how many will be still left to make a decent living, he asks.

In the meantime, he will tomorrow set out again at dawn in search of the increasingly elusive tuna.