By Leocadia Bongben
The Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries has published a provisional list of vessels to fly Cameroon’s flag. This is the third consecutive year of a transparency measure.
The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) declared last year that license publication is a priority under the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency, which is used by Cameroon’s participatory surveillance players, governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to eliminate illegal fishing from supply chains.
Of the 27 vessels authorized for now, only three companies are authorized to fish shrimp, down from seven last year.
Dr. Badai Elie, head of the ministry’s Control and Surveillance of Fishing Activities Brigade, warns, “Concerning aspects of transparency in the fishing sector, the licenses only authorize the vessels to fish in national waters, and products are obligatorily offloaded in designated ports.”
It should be mentioned that the European Commission issued Cameroon a ‘red card’ in 2023 because of ‘flags of convenience.’ Cameroon was accused of “continuing to register fishing vessels operating outside its waters without any monitoring.”
Against this context, the permits for the four vessels, FU YANG 1, 2, 3, and 5, were not renewed. This could be linked to reports of illegal fishing in the Argentine media.
According to a report by NewsduCamer, Cameroon vessels were involved in illegal fishing in Argentina, with reports from the Argentine media. The media cite a document from the Environmental Policy Circle (CPA) that attests to Chinese maneuvers to disguise illegal fishing.
The document states that Chinese vessels are using flags of convenience from other countries to hide their true identity. Milko Schvartzman, a fisheries expert at the Environment Political Circle, says this type of ‘camouflage’ is not entirely new, though it saw an increase in 2024. “On several occasions, the vessels in question were seen at the outer limit of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where only vessels flying the Argentine flag are authorized to fish.”