Save the Sea - Grassroots Training in Sierra Leone

EJF's boat facilitates a community monitoring and surveillance programme in the Sherbro River Estuary in Sierra Leone and in 2012 this simple but effective programme started to make a real difference.

The Sierra Leone Government has limited resources with which to protect its own waters yet artisanal fishers are well placed to identify and report illegal trawler activity. EJF's local staff have been working with communities in the Sherbro River Estuary to facilitate a network of fishers who report illegal activity to our local staff member and boat operator Amara Kalone. 

When Amara receives a report of illegal activity from a fisher in the area he locates the trawler in the EJF boat and takes photographs of the vessel, using a GPS device to prove it is fishing within the area reserved for artisanal fishers and capturing as many identity markings on the vessel as possible.

EJF then compiles IUU reports which are shared with the relevant authorities in west Africa as well as in the European Commission. Simple but effective, these reports have facilitated the arrest and fining of several illegal trawlers and significantly reduced illegal trawler activity in the Sherbro River Estuary.

From January 2012 to early January 2013 there were no reports to EJF of illegal trawlers and local fishers have reported an increase in fish catch and fish size. Although some trawlers have returned in the first half of 2013, EJF is working with the Sierra Leone Government and local communities to address this. 

In January 2013, the US Ambassador to Sierra Leone visited communities in the Sherbro River Estuary for the first time where local communities told him of the effectiveness of the community surveillance programme as well as the ongoing challenges they face.

Links:

• US Ambassador to Sierra Leone visits Sherbro River Estuary