Fish is a food source in Sierra Leone and a big contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The sea food also has the potential to contribute significantly to the health and national purse of many other African countries in the West African region.

Since 2010, more than 252 illegal fishing cases have been reported by over 23 communities in the Sherbro river area and effectively dealt with. Between 2011 and 2012 alone, US$ 300000 was generated for the Sierra Leonean government from communi¬ty surveillance because illegal trawl¬ers were prevented from overfishing vital stocks.

The Environment Justice Foundation now plans to expand the community surveillance model to other areas of West Africa. As a result of the vigilante activities against fishing of restricted stocks, communities liv¬ing around the Sherbro Rivea have reported increased catches of certain species and increased sightings of sharks, an indication of an improved ecosystem health, while in neigh¬bouring Guinea this successful model of has been included in the country’s poverty reduction strategy.
In addition to support the patrol of Sierra Leone’s coast, NEPAD, through its PAF programme has joined forces with the World Bank’s West African Regional Fisheries Programme (WARFP), to assist in reforming the fishing sector in the country.

“The trawlers destroyed our fishing gear, hooks, nets; I am one of the victims. We have no money to buy new net” said Koroa Lahai in the town of Bahoi which is 200 kilome¬tres from Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone.

Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a net through the water behind one or more boats. The vessels that are used for this kind of fishing are called trawlers or drag¬gers. Some of this fishing is done illegally and depletes stocks.

In 2009, NEPAD’s specialised fisheries programmme – the Partnership for African Fisheries (PAF) partnered with fifteen communities in the Sher¬bro Rivea area, and Sierra Leone’s Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) to combat illegal fishing off the region’s coast.

Sierra Leone loses around US$21 million per year to illegal fishing. The “Stop Illegal Fishing working group” is a team of experts have been put together by PAF to work on policy development and implementation on issues of illegal fishing.

Local fishermen were given cameras, satellite tracking locators, and two-radios. They have been using this equipment to report illegal fishing by done mainly by foreign vessels which trawl in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off the coast. Under the law of the sea, an EEZ is a sea area over which a state has special rights over the exploration and fuse of marine resources.

An established community surveil¬lance boat responds to calls from fishermen and other community members who spot pirate or illegal fishing or whose fishing equipment has been destroyed by industrial trawlers operating illegally in the exclusive zone.
Photographs and videos recording are made of any offending vessel, and then reported to the Sierra Le¬one authorities for action.

This evidence is then used to sanction the offenders who are often fined. Authorities also ensure that the catch is not illegally exported to the world’s most valuable seafood markets.