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The Benguela Current Commission is established |
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Four government ministers from Namibia and South Africa met in Cape Town on August 29 to sign an Interim Agreement that will establish a Benguela Current Commission (BCC). The BCC is a formal institutional structure that will help Angola, Namibia and South Africa to implement an “ecosystem approach” to managing the BCLME. This means that, instead of managing living and non-living marine resources at the national level, the three countries will work together to tackle transboundary environmental issues such as pollution, the management of shared fish stocks and the coordination of regional efforts to mitigate the impacts of marine mining and oil and gas production on the environment. The establishment of the BCC is the logical next step in a decade-long process of building trust and cooperation between the three countries of the Benguela. Marine scientists from Angola, Namibia and South Africa have been working together since 1995, when they began to share knowledge and understanding of the Benguela Current ecosystem through the regional science programme BENEFIT (Benguela Environment Fisheries Training Interactions Programme). More recently, scientists and fisheries managers have been working together through the BCLME Programme, a collaborative initiative that is supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The BCLME Programme has laid the groundwork for the three countries of the Benguela to manage the region’s valuable marine and coastal resources at the ecosystem level. It has funded 75 projects which have collectively improved knowledge of the BCLME and recommended strategies for the transboundary management of fishing, mining, oil exploration, coastal development, biodiversity and pollution. For instance, a cluster of projects is testing the cumulative impact of offshore marine diamond mining on the ecosystem. The projects will pull together the results from several previous studies and make clear recommendations to the governments of South Africa and Namibia about the impact that diamond mining may have on the environment over extended periods of time. A second cluster of projects is assessing and mapping the biodiversity of the estuarine, coastal, nearshore and offshore environments of the BCLME, and identifying suitable sites for aquaculture. The ultimate goal of these projects is to produce a strategic planning to tool that is capable of providing advice on the protection of sensitive areas and vulnerable species, as well as identifying possible sites for marine protected areas and aquaculture installations. Fisheries have been a major focus of the BCLME Programme, not only because they are a vital source of food and employment for people in coastal villages, towns and cities throughout the region, but also because they are severely affected by environmental change. For instance, a dramatic shift in the distribution of sardines from South Africa’s west coast to the country’s southeast coast is thought to be the result of environmental change. Sardines are the backbone of one of South Africa’s most valuable commercial fisheries, but the eastward shift of the sardine stock is making it more costly and more difficult for the fishing industry to land its annual catch. One of the ways in which South Africa is working to mitigate the impact of environmental change is to establish an Environmental Early Warning System (EEWS). It is working with Namibia and Angola, through the BCLME Programme, to set up a simple and cost-effective EEWS for the Bengula region. The idea is to provide the management agencies in the three countries with early warning of extreme environmental events so that they can take well informed decisions. Extreme environmental events include Benguela Niños, sustained warming events that can have a devastating impact on fisheries resources, especially when they are accompanied by low oxygen water or large scale eruptions of sulphur from the seabed. Environmental monitoring, coupled with recent outputs from the BCLME Programme suggest that the frequency of extreme events like Benguela Niños, low oxygen water events and harmful algal blooms will increase in the BCLME region, underlining the need for an EEWS. The BCC will formalise the loose ties that have been forged between Angola, Namibia and South Africa since 1995 when the regional marine science programme, BENEFIT, was established. It will make recommendations to the three countries on research and management issues relating to the management of the BCLME. It will be informed by an ecosystem advisory committee which will supply the three countries with the best available information concerning the implementation of the ecosystem approach to management. The BCC will come into force once the interim agreement has been signed by Angola’s ministers of Fisheries, Urbanisation and Environment and Petroleum and South Africa’s minister of Minerals and Energy. That should be achieved by year-end. |
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Issued by the
Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem Programme For further information: Claire
Attwood |
