African researchers look beyond 2030 for healthy, productive marine ecosystem

Researchers from universities in Africa including Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria, converged in Lagos to brainstorm on how the continent, especially Gulf of Guinea member-countries, can solve climate, food and biodiversity challenges to achieve a sustainable, healthy and productive marine ecosystem. Tunbosun Ogundare reports:  

It is not news that over 70 percent of the planet earth is covered by water. It is also not news that man relies heavily on oceans and seas for food, energy, transportation and water supply.

As essential as water is to humans, managing and protecting resources in them, especially fish, has become a challenge not only in Africa, but globally, causing great concern to stakeholders.

To change this narrative, some scholars and researchers from certain universities in Africa, converged on Lagos in continuation of their efforts to find solution that will best solve the food-climate- biodiversity challenge in Africa.

They met at the Lagos State University (LASU) Ojo, on Monday, January 26, for a two-day workshop with the theme, “Nature Futures Framework (NFF) for Sustainability Challenges at the Food-Climate- Biodiversity Nexus.”

Welcoming them to the forum, the Dean of Faculty of Science, LASU, Professor Moses Akanbi, expressed delight that the researchers could take on this all-important issue, underscoring the impact the project would have on humanity and Africa’s economy.

He said fish is one of the commonest foods in history and should be preserved at all cost.

On her part, Professor Laura Pereira, from the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, urged active participation from the attendees, stressing that no view or observation will be regarded or treated as inferior.

Pereira, who is the facilitator of the workshop and global co-coordinator of the project, noted that the project involves no fewer than five continents.

According to her, “We have our team in Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, China, Coastal Rica, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria.”

In an interview in Lagos, Pereira told Nigerian Tribune that the aim of the project is to deploy social and scientific solutions that will best address the challenges of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing and the effects of climate change on the coastal and marine ecosystems globally.

The idea, according to her, is aimed at achieving a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 by 2030, which concerns life below water.

“So, as we peep into that future,” she declared, “we need to ensure we have sufficient fish stocks and also enjoy other resources from our marine ecosystems.”

She noted that the project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), a Canadian federal research funding agency, is for six years starting from 2022.

Pereira demonstrated during the event how participants can use what she termed Nature Futures Framework (NFF) to address various challenges leading to depletion of fish stock and also pollution of marine resources in the sub-region. 

According to her, the NFF methodology, with no relevant stakeholder left behind, will help researchers holistically address the issue from three major components: Natures for Nature, Nature for Societies and Nature as culture.

She maintained that was why every view and thought matters and counts in research of this nature while urging participants to collaborate and partner where necessary.

In his own contribution, one of the project team leaders in Nigeria, Shehu Akintola, a Professor of Fisheries at LASU, gave an insight into what Nigeria and its people stand to gain from the project.

Nigeria’s economy is not only ranked fourth largest in Africa, but the country’s population also (the largest in Africa) put at 223.8 million by the World Bank, is an indication of its huge economic potential for fish.

According to Akintola, Prof William Cheung, Director of Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia, is the director of the project, while Prof Rashid Sumaila (a Nigerian and Canada Research Chair in Interdisciplinary Ocean and Fisheries Economics from the same university) is the leader of Africa’s team with two countries, Nigeria and Ghana, participating.

He named University of Lagos (UNILAG) Akoka and LASU as Nigeria’s participatory institutions, while University of Cape Coast, the Institute of Management and Public Administration, and the University of Energy and Natural Resources are those from Ghana.

“Five of us are grouped for West Africa case study. We will train some postgraduate students and early career academics to form respective teams and go to the field collecting data to gain insights into the issues of NFF and apply it to our individual studies.

“We in LASU are focusing on trans-shipment: to understand the modus of IUU, fishing and the nexus of food, climate and biodiversity in Nigeria’s marine fisheries to gain a better understanding of the impact of global warming on fish biodiversity and consequent impact on food security,” he noted.

Akintola, a former Dean, Faculty of Science, LASU, explained that it is not only through oil bunkering that Nigeria loses significant amounts of money, it also loses money through theft in the fishing industry.

According to him, many fishing companies including the large ones usually collude with the indigenous including the government officials and security agents to steal our fishes and ferry them out of Nigeria and other West African countries.

“People come from as far as Asia and Europe to perpetrate the act, including stealing of small fishes that ought to be spared and other marine resources and in the process, they also pollute the water.

“They do all these because they don’t pass through the ports, making it impossible for their activities to be documented or reported.

“Though Nigeria is not alone in this practice as it is a global phenomenon, it is expected that no country should be left behind in the crusade to change the narrative,” he said.

Explaining NFF methodology, which the don said has been tested and trusted, Akintola said knowing the happenings on waterways will help arouse stakeholders’ consciousness that will provoke actionable plans and implementation for sustainable, healthy and productive marine ecosystems in West Africa and the world at large.

He declared that the approach is based on the same three components (NFF), already explained by Pereira, plus the level of their interactions.

“That is why as we talk about fish, we are also concerned about the climate change as affecting the marine space, due to rising temperature to prevent getting to a stage where  fish won’t be able to survive again in Africa.”

Akintola lamented the alarming rate by which fishing companies collude with indigenous companies to steal fishes out of the shores of Africa to other parts of the world.

“So, we need to curb the practice because we’re depleting our fish stocks and also losing so much money through it,” he cautioned, stressing that “if the practice is not curbed, it may one day lead to fish extinction which we will find extremely difficult to live with.”

Akintola highlighted some other challenges associated with the practice which include outdated government policies and laws, and its failure for effective enforcement.

According to him, Nigerian laws regulating fishing industry need to be reviewed to suit the new reality that conforms to global best practices.

While acknowledging a new effort at reviewing the policies by the current government, he noted that the country was still relying on the old laws, formulated over three decades ago, wondering why it has been difficult expediting action on the law.

“So, our studies are aimed at proffering solutions that will lead Africa to fish sufficiency by 2030.”\

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On her part, a co-investigator from UNILAG, Dr Temitope Sogbanmu (an environmental toxicologist), shed light on her team’s role in the project.

According to her, “We from UNILAG are investigating how we can resolve, as a country, micro plastic pollution on fishery and climate change on our coastal and marine ecosystem.

“We are sampling fishes from the ocean and examining potential micro plastic substances in them, and also the impact of climate change.

“We are also engaging with the key stakeholders to establish different perspectives and observations around IUU fishing, including experiences of fishing companies to know whether it is now more difficult for them to get fish to catch fish or not because of the climate change

“We are covering Lagos to Calabar coastline axis, and we have already engaged stakeholders across 20 to 30 different sectors, including the Nigerian Navy, Interpol, Marine Police, fishermen, NIMASA, Nigerian Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research and so forth that have something to do with the management of activities on the waterways.

“The aim is to have co-creation template around the issue in focus so as to develop the future we all dream about for our dear country Nigeria and Africa by extension- the future where we don’t have to complain again of no enough fish for local consumption just because pollution or climate change has disrupted our marine resources and services.

“Now, we are midway into the project as we still have three more years.”

In an interview, Dr Margaret Akwetey, from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, emphasised the need to plan and take action now to resolve the impact of man’s activities and climate change on fish production in Africa.

According to her, aside natural hazards, many human-induced activities, including the use of chemicals and disposing of all kinds of objects, including plastics into the seas, are also causing greater damage to marine ecosystem and resources. This practice need to be stopped.

“That is the only way we can sustain catching edible fishes in Africa,” she concluded.