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Inadequate funding for the Fisheries Department and poor laws have resulted in a sharp rise in illegal fishing. Government officials and environmentalists are now calling for more funding for the sector and existing laws to be streamlined to increase locals' earnings.
Assistant Fisheries Development minister Abu Chiaba said the increase in illegal fishing in Kenyan waters was due to inadequate funding to boost the surveillance capacity of the Fisheries Department.
"The ministry should be given more funds to increase surveillance," he said.
He said three years after a project funded by the Food and Agriculture Organisation to curb illegal fishing, including trawling, was announced, there has been little action on the ground.
"Some things are taken casually but the truth is that even the rise in cases of piracy stem from a failure to act decisively against illegal fishing," Mr Chiaba said.
Kenya Marine Forum secretary Mr Anwarry Abae said syndicates run by wealthy individuals were financing the illegal fishing activities.
He said that despite the ban in trawling, unscrupulous fishermen were still involved in the illegal activity, especially in the delta, destroying corals and breeding grounds for fish.
Mr Abae said a proposed fisheries policy which is awaiting ministerial approval and debate in Parliament needed to be amended to ensure that more clauses promoting local fishermen are included. Source:
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