By Edgar Brandt
WINDHOEK – The Directorate of Resource Management in the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources is hard at work to ensure that necessary changes have been effected on the newly acquired research vessel, the RV Mirabilis, for it to become fully operational.
This is according to the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Bernard Esau, who said Namibia is now becoming self-reliant in terms of marine surveys, and will be even more so once the RV Mirabilis is fully operational. “To date several sea trials were conducted and the vessel was successfully inter-calibrated with the RV Dr Fridtjof Nansen and is now expected to carry out all the surveys,” said Esau.
During 2014, the Directorate of Resource Management in the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources successfully conducted surveys to assess the biomass of all fish stocks targeted for commercial exploitation. This includes hake, horse mackerel, deep sea red carb, sardine, monk and rock lobster, with the exception of orange roughy.
During his annual address to Ministry of Fisheries and Resources staff members on Wednesday afternoon, Esau noted that essential data was also collected from the fishing industry itself, fisheries observers onboard commercial vessels as well as ladings statistics of all species for stock assessment purposes. Aerial and field surveys were also conducted along the coast to determine the status of Namibia’s seal population. “The annual total allowable catch (TAC) for each of these species was determined and advice on the sustainable utilisation was provided. Furthermore, 20 environmental surveys were conducted to monitor the state of the marine environment, environmental variability and climate change,” said Esau.
Esau added that the undertaking of the scoping study for the impacts of marine phosphate mining on the ecosystem, the launching of the hake management plan and the regulations for the reduction of incidental seabird by-catch in the hake and longline fisheries, which is in the process of being gazetted, are among the ministry’s highlights for 2014.
However, the minister highlighted that the retention of qualified and experienced scientists remains a challenge for the Directorate of Resource Management and as such the training of new scientists has been an ongoing process. “The problem has put strain on the remaining scientists to perform the required research to manage the living marine resources. The vision of the directorate is to have adequately trained and well-experienced scientists in order to ensure continuity of research and the sustainability of the country’s living marine resources and ecosystem health,” remarked Esau.
Esau continued that activities leading to TAC determination had to be prioritised as the availability of financial resources allocated to the Directorate of Resource Management to carry out its functions, which includes the running of the research vessels, has not been sufficient. “Namibia promotes the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries management, which requires a broad range of research activities,” said Esau.