Artisanal fisheries

ARTISANAL FISHERIES MONITORING

Artisanal or Traditional fisheries involve fishing households (as opposed to commercial companies), mainly for local consumption. These fisheries represent an important socio-economic and cultural aspect of coastal communities, and their impact on coastal reefs and vulnerable mega-fauna may be significant.They are more and more referred to as Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF).

The ‘small’ in small-scale fisheries refers to the size of the fishing boat and the size of the crew on the boat. ‘Small-scale’ can be misleading, however, since although the size of the fishing unit is small, the extent and prevalence of this type of fishery on a global scale is not. In fact, about 95% of fishers worldwide are small-scale fishers and it is estimated that as much as 50% of the global landings come from small-scale fisheries.
We here make a strong distinction between Coastal fishing which refers to European’s one (roughly numbered at 80,000 units) and African SSF (see map)

In Africa, we will address specific case of west coast with Senegal and Mauritania, which face context of fishing among oil & gas rigs or FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading)