Sierra Leone fisheries have had a remarkable rate of development during the past decade (1974–84). The fishery manager should now concern himself with appropriate fishing innovations and exploitation of ‘new’ untapped resources, possibly off the slope. It is not clear that increased fishing intensity will result in a significant increase in catch of those dominant species presently exploited by artisanal and industrial ‘fleets’. Hence, attention must be focused on control and adjustment of fishing effort (i.e., control the number, type and size of gears used).
It is recognized that fairly good progress has been made in the collection of fishery statistics, but there are still a lot of information gaps on landings by artisanal and industrial fishing boats, as well as on by-catch of shrimpers and finfish trawlers. There is a need to update the inventory of all types of canoes, number of fishermen, fishing gears and landing sites along the entire coast of Sierra Leone. Additionally, it is necessary to revise the inventory of all industrial fishing vessels, indicating nationality of vessel, type of boat, horse power, overall length, GRT as well as characteristics of the fishing gear.
Some fish stocks exploited by Sierra Leone are also shared with Liberia and Guinea. It is expected that the fishermen exploiting these species will move following fish migration patterns. In view of this, one needs catch data from various locations along the coast to explain the seasonality of various fisheries.
Without reliable fishery data and statistics of what is currently being caught, it is obviously difficult to predict future trends. Also, series of catch and effort statistics - if continued over a period of years - provides the best measure of changes in a stock of fish and the impact on fishing on it. Collection of comprehensive statistics from artisanal fisheries is not easy, but various methods of statistical survey design exist, which can produce estimates to an acceptable precision at a reasonable cost, and these should be applied now and used more often.
Rational management of the fishery resources in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) requires greater control of fisheries. It is imperative that proper fishery legislation and regulations be established and, whenever possible, be harmonized with those of adjacent coastal States, jointly exploiting the resources. A national forum is needed to discuss problems connected with the implementation of fishery regulations.
In the context of extended jurisdiction, the most obvious set of actions is the control set on fishing in the new EEZ, especially on foreign fishing. These measures have little direct impact on the inshore fisheries which are of interest to artisanal fishermen. However, there can be interactions, and these should be taken into account when choosing controls. It is a fact that the two fisheries can share the same stock and that offshore fisheries affect inshore catches of artisanal fisherman. Hence, the two types of fisheries must be protected by proper legislation and regulations.
The artisanal fishermen and owners of industrial vessels should be organized in cooperative groups to ensure their positive involvement and participation in the management of their fisheries. If fishermen cannot understand the importance of a particular regulation, it will be difficult to enforce that regulation. Hence, it might be necessary to hold national seminars to obtain better understanding of justification for fishery regulations.
The artisanal canoe fishermen interact with trawlers and shrimpers in Sierra Leone. The migration and dispersion of fish enables large fishing vessels to intercept fish species before they can be caught by artisanal fishing units. It has been reported that sometimes the shrimpers, finfish trawlers and canoes operate on the same fishing grounds. In these circumstances, an expanding fleet of industrial vessels will reduce the catches of canoe fishermen. The fisheries manager in Sierra Leone has a difficult balance to establish between increased total catch by industrial vessels and upgrading the well-being of ‘small-scale’ fishermen.
Information on fish species exploited by artisanal fisheries is not adequate enough to enable accurate estimates of current catch rates and determining the effect of additional trawlers. Nevertheless, considering the national and foreign industrial fleets and trends in catch rates in the early 1980s, Sierra Leonean continental shelf is somewhat heavily exploited; this implies that additional industrial vessels and greater efficiency of trawlers and shrimpers will lead to reduced catch rates of artisanal and industrial fisheries.
Rational fishery management would impose the following restrictions: closed areas, closed season, use of specified types of gears and mesh size, and catch quotas. The enforcement of regulations can be impracticable, except at a very high cost. If the Government could delimit fishing grounds for shrimpers, finfish trawlers and canoe fishermen, this would be a very positive step in the right direction. The trawlers and shrimpers could effectively be banned from fishing in the estuaries, and inshore waters delimited by a 20-m depth isobath and/or a 2- or 3-mi limit from the shoreline.
The density of fish stocks, the catch rates of individual fishermen and catch rates of trawlers/shrimpers are determined by fishing intensity. For stocks that are rather heavily fished, as those of Sierra Leone, any increase in fishing effort will decrease the catches and catch rates of vessels already fishing. If the well-being of existing national fishermen is a priority fishery policy issue, then entry of additional trawlers and shrimpers must only be allowed with caution.
The introduction of industrial fishing vessels for exploiting the stocks, which are fished by canoe fishermen in the inshore waters, will have adverse effects. Fishery administrators must carefully evaluate the benefits of some increased catches in a short run and the social costs of some artisanal fishermen being forced to leave fishing business.
As the exploited stocks become more and more heavily fished, the catch rates will decline and the total catches will finally decrease. The national objective might be to ensure a steady and high supply of fish to the population, but this appears to be incompatible with the strategy of uncontrolled increase in fishing effort. For example, in 1979 Sierra Leone issued fishing licences to 178 industrial vessels of various nationalities. Considering the extent of the continental shelf, fishing effort was excessive in that year. Besides, many fishing canoes operated in the inshore waters along the coast. It is not surprising that catch rates and total catches have declined since then.
The fishery administrators should recognize that the scope of fishery development and management is economic and not only biological. There are problems in fishery planning and a need for the right decisions to be taken in order to sustain fish production in both artisanal and industrial sectors. To make rational fishery policy requires good information on biology of exploited species, the various fisheries themselves, the economics of various fisheries and contribution of fisheries to the well-being of the entire population.
Joint USSR/Sierra Leone fishery investigations have led to different estimates of biomass and potential yield. The results of the Trawling Survey (GTS), given by Williams (1968) and the results of R/V DR FRIDTJOF NANSEN, reported by Strømme (1983) and CECAF (1984) lead to lower magnitudes of biomass and potential yield. There is disagreement over different assessment works and, this is due to a shaky data base that allows several interpretations. In these circumstances, one must have great reservation for over-optimistic statements on production potential based on non-objective analysis of limited data. Biological productivity of the known adjacent waters (continental shelves of Guinea and Liberia) does not justify such high magnitudes.
There is a difficult question of fishing on the spawning concentrations. The artisanal fisheries are in the shallow inshore areas, estuaries and lagoons, which are also the spawning and nursery areas of many species. Some of the species exploited in inshore waters are also caught offshore where they are bigger in size. Hence, fishing activities of the artisanal fishermen can result in a decrease in total weight of catch and size of species caught. Fish migration and dispersion over the continental shelf of Sierra Leone enable trawlers and shrimpers to intercept fish which could be fished by canoe fishermen. There is also evidence that trawlers and shrimpers and canoes fish on the same grounds. In these circumstances, an intensive industrial fishery will reduce the catch of artisanal fishermen.
The establishment of EEZ provides an opportunity to control foreign fishing through the increased awareness at high political levels of the importance of rational management of fisheries in the EEZ from the coast out to 200 mi, for the greater benefit of the inshore artisanal fishermen. If the decisions taken to apply restrictive measures are to achieve the objectives hoped for, it is essential that those responsible for fishery management have adequate information on distribution and migration of fish stocks. Maps indicating the distribution, migrations and spawning of some fish species have been compiled by Garcia (1982), and those relevant to Sierra Leone are given in Appendixes 6–10.
It is necessary to know to what extent the same stock is harvested by the inshore fishermen and by the larger offshore foreign vessels which may be more directly affected by the establishment of EEZs. Additionally, attention should be focused on the problem of fishing by neighbouring countries (e.g., Sierra Leone and Guinea). Since fishing operations by neighbouring countries affect Sierra Leone resources, there is a need for regional coordination. The fishery administrator must take a wider view of fishery management, which calls for several government activities in fisheries: decision on allocation of resources; regulation of effort; provision of subsidies to artisanal fishermen; improvement of infrastructures at fish-landing sites; construction of landing piers and access roads; establishment of appropriate control on fishing imports and exports of fish products - all of which affect fishing patterns.
Rational management of fisheries could bring tremendous nutritional and economic benefits to Sierra Leone. Whether or not these benefits can be realized in the near future will depend on fishery administrator's commitment to make the right policy and choose the best objective at the right time, collect the necessary information on various fisheries and take the necessary actions for ‘consideration’.
