Fuente : World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org

World Bank To Invest in Global Fisheries Program

/noticias.info/ The World Bank has an ongoing global portfolio of some US$ 1.2 billion in fisheries, aquaculture, coastal and aquatic environmental management, and related projects serving coastal and fishing communities. In addition to that a strategic partnership between the Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is promoting Sustainable Fisheries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This Investment Fund for Sustainable Fisheries is designed to leverage $60 million in GEF funds in a 3:1 co-financing ratio, to deliver a total investment of US$240 million for sustainable fisheries over the next 10 years. In a statement issued in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Wednesday, the Bank's Environment Director Warren Evans Evans said the "New Global Program on Fisheries (Profish)" initiative would be executed in association with key donors and other stakeholders.

Xinhua (China) reports that Evans, who is attending an ongoing four-day summit of African fisheries in Abuja with participants from 26 African countries and related international organizations, said the Profish program was aimed at meeting the challenges of growing crisis and would focus on sustainable fisheries management and governance. The director said the overall objective of Profish was to "assist developing countries in the design and implementation of sector strategies and plans for sustainable fisheries."

At the global level, he said, Profish would address issues of illegal fishing, subsidies, knowledge building and raising awareness in favor of sustainable fisheries policies. Evans approximated that 25 percent of the world's marine fish stocks were considered over-exploited, while additional 50 percent were fully exploited. He said the depleted state of wild fish stocks was due to over fishing, increasing degradation of coastal and freshwater ecosystems and habitats. Evans said in many developing countries, the sustainable benefits were declining, perpetuating poverty for many small-scale fishers and communities dependent on fisheries.

Evans said the livelihood of about 150 million people depended on fisheries, aquaculture and associated activities, while more than 20 percent of the world's 38 million full-time fishers earned less than one dollar per day. He said many fishers lived in the world's poorest countries, where communities were often marginalized and landless. The director said the export value of world trade in fish in 2002 was $58 billion, more than the combined value of net exports of sugar, rice, coffee and tea. He disclosed that the World Bank supported a number of country projects which had significant fisheries components.

The online edition of BBC News further adds the Profish program will also compile a global list of illegal fishing vessels. It could also reduce the extent of legal fishing by European boats in African waters. "Although large vessels receive a lot of attention, in fact small-scale operations at local level are causing extensive ecological damage, by harming coral reefs, spawning grounds and so on; basically these boats exploit every stock they can," said Evans. The process of compiling the rogues' register will be led by IUCN, the World Conservation Union, which joins the World Bank, FAO, and other conservation bodies in launching Profish, with initial investment from Iceland, France, Norway, Finland and the World Bank's development facility.

Profish will also develop a "small-scale fisheries toolkit", which will show fishing communities how to manage stocks in a sustainable yet profitable way. It also aims to develop estimates of "resource rent loss" for developing countries - the amounts of money they are losing by not managing fisheries for sustained production. The news site further notes that fish is a vital food in many parts of Africa, and in other developing countries, supplying protein and micronutrients such as zinc, calcium and vitamin A. But at the opening of the Abuja conference, held under the auspices of the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad), the research organization WorldFish Center warned that stocks in Africa are being depleted rapidly, with the availability of fish as a food within the continent declining. A 20 percent increase in fish farming, it said, would be needed to maintain consumption at current levels. notas_de_prensa_archivo