After Ghana, Liberia and Senegal, the DASE mobile application arrives in Cameroon. Artisanal fishermen living along the Douala-Edéa coast in the Littoral region can now report illegal fishing by trawlers in real time. From November 27 to December 1, 2023, some 100 fishermen from the Mbiako, Youme II and Yoyo I camps were trained in documenting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities.
DASE works simply. When a trawler is suspected of fishing illegally, an artisanal fisherman can open the app installed on his smartphone and take a photo of the vessel, including its name or identification number, to record the location. The app uploads the report to a centralized database that the authorities can use to arrest and punish offenders.
These fishermen also received equipment for community surveillance, such as smartphones, life jackets, binoculars, chasubles and waterproof pouches, to protect the fishermen’s phones during the activity. “This training and equipment will help us to report trawler incursions and protect our main source of income as well as our fishing gear,” confides Orimisan Omoruyi, president of the Mbiako fishermen.
An app launched by EJF
This participatory fishing monitoring project is the brainchild of the British non-governmental organization (NGO) Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), which fights IUU fishing worldwide. “Involving artisanal fishermen, whose livelihoods are at stake, in monitoring is an essential step towards ethical, sustainable and legal fishing. When they have the tools they need to report illegal fishing directly and quickly, they can make a decisive contribution to reducing the huge data deficit in the fight against illegal fishing”, explains Steve Trent, founder of EJF.
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This popularization of the DASE application comes at just the right time in Cameroon, where IUU fishing is jeopardizing its exports. In January 2023, the Central African country received a red card from the European Commission, labeling Cameroon as a “non-cooperating country in the fight against IUU fishing”. A status that suspends the export of Cameroon’s fishery resources to the European market.
Boris Ngounou