Ex-fisherman and Independent Fisheries Advisor Francisco Blaha has just venture wfar away from home and spent a trip aboard a West African trawler with an African crew. The sentiments evoked in his words about what it is to be a fisherman and why will resonate clearly with any fisherman who reads them.
And to be honest, I don’t know why. I guess… Maybe I should think more about what could go wrong—I rarely do.
In any case, this aligns with my personal principles, as most capacity-building programs around compliance only take place in the authorities' offices. I am unaware of any individual who develops systems and provides training to those on the board of fishing boats responsible for compliance. Therefore, we should also be on board fishing boats if we work in offices and upscale hotel meeting rooms. I think that is just fair.
I'm back working in Guinea-Bissau and lucky to be known as a specialist on both sides of the EU compliance requirements: the sanitary certification and the IUU Catch certification. (I wrote a booklet explaining both over ten years ago. Let me know if anyone wants to pay me to update!). On top of that, there aren’t many Portuguese-speaking consultants around!
But then I’m also aware that I’m quite lucky to have been a fisherman before a scientist and then a consultant; hence, nothing on the technical side of what I’m doing is new to me.
Finally, I suppose I'm here because I've never done anything like this before. I have never gone fishing in these parts of the world, let alone on an exclusively African crewed boat. The crew of 27 is a mixture of Mauritanian, Senegalese, and Guinean-Bissauans.
