FG commences registration of fishing canoes, crafts

Speaking recently in Lagos at a stakeholder’s awareness workshop on the “Registration of Artisanal Fishing Crafts and Canoes for the Coastal States of Nigeria”, the Director of Fisheries, Ms Foluke Areola, said that proper and adequate registration of artisanal fishing canoes will ensure better planning and development of the fisheries sub-sector.The exercise, Ms Areola said, […]

Speaking recently in Lagos at a stakeholder’s awareness workshop on the “Registration of Artisanal Fishing Crafts and Canoes for the Coastal States of Nigeria”, the Director of Fisheries, Ms Foluke Areola, said that proper and adequate registration of artisanal fishing canoes will ensure better planning and development of the fisheries sub-sector.
The exercise, Ms Areola said, will give the operators an identity beyond the shores of Nigeria, especially when fishing in coastal waters shared with neighbouring countries, accord them due recognition and ensure the fishing canoes of artisanal fishermen in the country are not used for sea armed robbery or piracy.
She said: “Efforts in the past in the registration of artisanal fishing crafts had not been effective enough hence the need to carefully and properly design a means towards ensuring authentic and reliable figures.”
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote, in her address, disclosed that artisanal fishing industry has contributed over 75 per cent of our domestic fish production, and in the last 25 years had been operating with fishing crafts that are not registered.
She said there was a need to address this issue properly as it was impossible to say how many of such operators existed in the country.
Odusote said that the ministry was vigorously committed to data collection and had reactivated the Advisory Committee on Fisheries Statistics.