Fisher communities in West Africa are being hard hit by IUU fishing by foreign vessels © Environmental Justice Foundation.
Woman smoke fish and are the fishmongers in many West African countries, and are being particularly hard hit by declines in fish numbers. © Environmental Justice Foundation.
The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation provided a grant of £50,000 in 2007/08 to enable the following activities and successes of the Environmental Justice Foundation’s work to stop pirate fishing:
• Produced and launched the documentary film Stolen Fish – How Pirate Fishing is Robbing the Seas and People of West Africa presenting the environmental and social impacts of illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in West Africa. Three versions have been produced: a 2-minute public awareness short, an 8-minute short film, and full 22-minute documentary.
• Widely campaigned in favour of a European Regulation to address IUU fishing, including consultation processes, advocacy in collaboration with MEP’s, and a direct meeting with European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg to discuss the closure of ‘Ports of Convenience’, including Las Palmas, as well as wider measures to eliminate IUU fishing.
• Continued to collaborate with and train JALA, a Sumatran grassroots network campaigning against the use of illegal trawls in Indonesia.
• Continued to recruit and work with celebrity chefs to engage consumers in our campaign.
• EJF film has been used by the BBC, European Commission and the UK’s Department for International Development to highlight the problems of IUU fishing.
• Ran a highly successful media campaign to raise awareness of the issue in the UK, Europe and internationally, including front page stories in the International Herald Tribune and New York Times.
• Working alongside other international NGO’s, successfully campaigned for the introduction of a driftnet definition into European legislation, closing the final loophole being exploited by French and Italian fleets.
• Continued to monitor the implementation of the driftnet ban in Morocco.
• Investigated pirate fishing in Sierra Leone, West Africa, documenting the impacts on fishing communities.
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