Namibia losing 500 tons of fish to illegal fishing

THE NAMIBIAN Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) has warned that illegal fishers stationed alongside Namibia’s 140km long Zambezi River border, which it shares with Zambia, are bleeding revenue from the country’s fishing industry.

MFMA spokesman, De Wet Siluka said dealers harvested and illegally exported at least 500 tons of fish each year to lucrative fish markets in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Siluka said this illegal, unrecorded and unregulated fish trade had resulted in a loss of revenue for the country, as hundreds of illegal fishermen from Zambia and the DRC had taken advantage of weak border controls to set up illegal camps and fishing rigs along the 140km border stretch along the Zambezi floodplain.

“The major problem is that while 80 percent of the Zambezi floodplains are in Namibia, there are more Zambian fishermen who set up temporary, though illegal, fishing camps on Namibian soil when the annual floods subside. Almost all their catches are sold in Zambia and the DRC.

“The monitoring teams are handicapped by the conditions in which they have to work as most of the illegal activities take place at night over the entire 140km of the Zambezi floodplain which separates the two countries. The government cannot sustain the salaries and allowances of staff who go on such field patrols,” Siluka said.

The bream fish species which the illegal fishers have targeted include three-spot tilapia, red-breast tilapia, green-head tilapia and catfish which are exported in fresh, dried, salted and smoked form. – ANA