CIFA Working Party on Pollution and Fisheries
Third Session, Accra, Ghana, 25–29 November 1991
REPORT OF THE SESSION
The Third Session of the Working Party on Pollution and Fisheries of the Committee for Inland Fisheries of Africa (CIFA) was held at the FAO Regional Office for Africa (RAFR) in Accra, Ghana.
On behalf of the Director-General of FAO, Mr Edouard Saouma, the Assistant Director-General (Fisheries), Mr A. Lindquist, and the Regional Representative for Africa, Mr R.T. N'Daw, and with the permission of Mr M. Okai, Officer-in-charge of RAFR, Mr W.Q.B. West, Senior Regional Fisheries Officer and Secretary of CIFA, opened the session at 10.00 hours on 25 November 1991 and welcomed the members of the Working Party.
Mr P. Ochumba was unanimously elected Chairman of the session. He introduced the Agenda (Annex I), welcomed the participants (listed in Annex II), and referred to the working papers (listed in Annex III).
Mr H. Naeve, Technical Secretary of the Working Group reported that the document entitled “Scientific bases for pollution control in African Inland Waters. Domestic and industrial organic loads”, prepared during the second session, had been published as an Annex to FAO Fisheries Report No 437.
A draft document on this subject was presented by Mr Ch. Biney, together with comments received from members of the Working Party and from other African scientists. The paper and comments were thoroughly discussed, a number of amendments were added and an evaluation at regional level was prepared together with a chapter on conclusions. The amended document, the final editing of which was left to Mr Ch. Biney, is attached to this report as Annex IV. The Working Party requested the Secretariat to look into the possibility of publishing this paper in a scientific journal to give it a wide distribution. Preference was expressed for publishing the paper under joint authorship (Biney et al.), if acceptable to the publisher. Otherwise, authorship could be assigned to the CIFA Working Party on Pollution and Fisheries.
The Working Group discussed the feasibility to prepare a document on pesticides in the African aquatic environment. Although it was recognized that not many data may exist in all of the African regions, in particular for the freshwater environment, it was decided to nevertheless make an attempt to compile such a study, restricting it, however, to organochlorine substances, bearing in mind the widespread use of such compounds in Africa and the potential hazard they are posing to the aquatic environment.
The following steps in preparing the document were agreed upon:
Preparation by May 1992 of sub-regional reports for
Southern Africa by Mr O. Osibanjo.
These reports will be sent to Mr O. Osibanjo, who will also be in charge of compiling information from Nigeria, copied to the Secretariat in Rome.
The Secretariat will facilitate the work of the members of the Working Party by running a computer literature search on the subject.
Mr O. Osibanjo will prepare by November 1992 a comprehensive draft document on organochlorine substances in the African aquatic environment, which will be circulated to members of the Working Party and to other scientists in Africa for comments by February 1993.
In case the information collected appears sufficient to publish a report on the subject, it is envisaged to reconvene the Working Party in June 1993 to finalize the document.
Mr W.Q.B. West introduced this item of the Agenda and referred to the high importance CIFA attaches to the interference of environmental degradation with fisheries and aquaculture in Africa on one hand and on the possible effects of aquaculture and fisheries activities on the environment on the other hand.
The Working Party suggested that one of its members should present at the Symposium a summary of the work it had undertaken and the achievements made. To this end it was recommended that the scientific papers prepared by the Working Party be combined in a Technical Paper, complemented with relevant recommendations for the protection and management of the African environment for the benefit of fisheries. This Technical Paper should be distributed at the Symposium.
The Working Party discussed what areas related to pollution and fisheries could be covered during the Symposium, and it was recommended that contributions should be invited on the following topics of specific relevance for the future development of the region:
Effects of physical modifications of the aquatic environment on fisheries,
Comparative toxicology (response of African aquatic species to toxic substance as compared to data on European and American species),
Ecological status of African rivers (results from biological monitoring programmes),
Strategies for hazard assessment exercises and results from African studies,
Environmental impacts of species introductions (possibly prepared by the CIFA Working Party on the subject),
Effects of organic pollution and eutrophication on fisheries.
The Working Group reviewed the draft report of the session and approved it for submission to CIFA. Editorial changes were left to the Secretariat.
Mr H. Naeve thanked the members of the Working Party for their work and congratulated them on the results achieved. The Chairman, Mr P. Ochumba, closed the session on Friday, 29 November 1991 at 12.30 hours.
