2.1 THE CONGOLESE FISHERIES
2.2 THE ANGOLAN FISHERIES
A map of the area showing the statistical divisions and the geographic names used in this report is given in Figure 1.
The sardinella resources in the area from the south of Gabon to the south of Angola are clearly separated from the sardinella stocks along the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea and from the northwest Africa sardinella resources. This applies in particular to the stocks of Sardinella aurita. Within the area of distribution of the Congo-Angola stocks, various fisheries can be distinguished.
There are three distinct fisheries:
(a) The traditional canoe fishery, carried out for a very long time by the local fishermen (Vilis) using small canoes propelled with oars (pagaies), and fishing with driftnets, presently made of nylon. This fishery has been increasing in recent years. There were about 500 canoes participating in the fishery in 1977, with a total catch estimated at about 1 500 t/year.(b) The so-called “popo” fishery, which was initiated with about ten boats in 1963, remained fairly constant in the first years but suddenly developed from 1972 onwards. After a decline in the number of boats in 1978, this number seems to have returned towards its earlier level in 1979. The fishery is carried out by expatriates from West Africa who have introduced a fishing technique new for Congo using motorized canoes bought in Ghana and employing nylon encircling gillnets which are industrially produced in Benin. The sardinella landings of this fleet may attain about 5 000 t/year. The following table shows the number of boats in the Congolese “popo” fishery from 1973 to 1978.
|
Year |
1973 |
1974 |
1975 |
1976 |
1977 |
1978 |
|
No. of boats |
42 |
71 |
83 |
82 |
117 |
63 |
(c) The industrial fishery, carried out by purse seiners. From 1964 till 1969, there was one seiner of 25 t hold capacity only. In 1970 and 1971, two boats participated in this fishery, and the number increased to three in 1972 and four in 1977. During this period, there was a progressive replacement of the first small seiners, preserving the fish on ice, by larger units (40-120 t hold capacity), most of which preserve the fish in cooled sea water.
No information was available to the meeting on the artisanal small-boat fisheries in Angolan waters, but catches of sardinella by this fishery were believed to be small.
During the period 1945-1976, practically the only fleet exploiting the sardinella resources was the Angolan purse seiner fleet. Except for a South African fleet consisting of a factoryship and about 20 purse seiners fishing in September-November 1971 off north Angola outside territorial waters, which has caught an estimated 80 000 t of sardinella (Ghéno and Campos Rosado, 1974), only minor catches, not amounting to more than a few percent of the total sardinella catch, have been reported for other fleets fishing in the area which were mainly fishing for other species. However, in 1977, a USSR fleet started to catch considerable quantities of sardinella in Angolan waters (Table 1). The Soviet catches were made by purse seiners of 150-1 000 GRT, and by trawlers of 2 000 GRT and over, using mid-water trawls.
The Angolan purse seine fishery for sardinella in the period 1945-1972 is believed to . have been carried out nearly exclusively in the central and northern Angolan areas (Campos Rosado, 1973). At the start of the fishery, in about 1945), one small seiner was fishing sardinella in ICSEAF Division 1.2 (Cape Salinas) and this Division remained the main area for the sardinella fishery. The number and size of the vessels rapidly increased until 1959, after which the number showed a slow but continuous decline and the size of the boats remained fairly constant. From 1969 onward, sardinella was also caught in ICSEAF Division 1.1 (Cape Palmeirinhas). Data on the number and average tonnage of the seiners in each division are shown in Table 4. Campos Rosado (1973) described the purse seiners as small boats of 20-25 m long, 50-80 GRT, and propelled by diesel motors of 100-200 hp, using nets of 400-500 m long and 50-60 m high, with 65 knots per metre in the webbing. Comparison of this information with the average GRT given in Table 2, however, suggests that the boats fishing in the central and northern Angolan areas are on the average rather smaller than those described by Campos Rosado, which will better represent the larger boats fishing for other species in Division 1.3 (Cunene).
For the period 1973-1977, no information was available to the Ad hoc working group on the number of boats fishing in the area, but the catch statistics indicate that a drastic reduction in the fishing activities has taken place from 1974 to 1976, after which the fishery started to increase again.
