MIXED species, different fishing gears and lack of capacity are some of the challenges that haunt sustainable fishing and data collection in the country.
Speaking at the opening of a two-week regional workshop on fish stock assessment here on Monday, Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) Director, Dr Margareth Kyewalyanga said though the fishery sector contributes significantly to global food security, livelihoods and economy, there are still challenges affecting sustainable development of fishery sectors in the region, especially in the Western Indian Ocean region.”
At the meeting held at Marumaru Hotel, Stone Town, she informed scientists from Africa an abroad that Sustainable Development Goals (SDG -target 14.4 .1) calls for “restoring overfished stocks at least to levels that can produce Maximum Sustainable Yield.”
She said developing and implementing effective management plans to rebuild overfished stocks requires strong political will and appropriate policies, “It also depends on data– accurate and useful data.”
The workshop objectives include engaging stakeholders (decision-makers) on the current national data systems, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for improvements.
