On the 3rd and 4th July 2024, the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC) organized an expert workshop to propose guidance notes on management options to be implemented to implement the recommendations of the Eastern Central Atlantic Fisheries Commission (CECAF) Stock Assessment Working Group recommendations for the management of shared small pelagic stocks in Northwest Africa. This event brings together about fifteen experts from The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and the PRSP, under the co-facilitation of Mika Diop for the CRSP and Matthieu Bernardon for the FAO's EAF-Nansen1 programme .
The objective of the two-day meeting, which brought together the SRFC Management Research Group, is to initiate the process of developing guidance notes on management options to implement CECAF's recommendations for the management of sardinella fisheries in Northwest Africa. More specifically, it was a question of identifying the priority topics to be addressed, defining their structure, and drafting a methodology. It is part of the implementation of the Letter of Agreement Approval between FAO's EAF-Nansen programme and the PRSC, one of the objectives of which is to support the regular production of information useful to managers, based on the best available knowledge at the national and regional levels, in particular the data produced in the framework of the scientific plan and surveys campaigns of the research vessel R/V Dr Fridtjof Nansen, as well as the results of the work of the CECAF working groups.
Mr. Khallahi Brahim, Permanent Secretary of the SRFC, in his opening remarks, underlined the importance of this exercise: " This exercise is important in that it will help synthesize and disseminate existing scientific information so that it is understandable and directly usable by decision-makers for the management of sardinella fishery."
Dr. Cheikh Braham of IMROP, Chair of the Small Pelagic Working Group for Northwest Africa (CECAF), added that: " This workshop comes at the right time, and responds perfectly to one of the key recommendations of the last meeting of the CECAF Small Pelagic Working Group held in Dakar from 28 June to 2 July 2024. It will support the efforts to be undertaken for a better sharing of scientific results and conclusions ."
1The EAF-Nansen Programme is a historic partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Norway, executed in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Marine Research (IMR). The Programme is also one of the United Nations "Decade Actions" of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030).
