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afrol News, 26 August - Artisanal fishing is one of the main income sources for Mauritanian households. The government now invests in new centres for this industry in southern Mauritania, to facilitate education, fishing and marketing. Also the environment is to be safeguarded. In June, the construction work of a new artisanal fishing harbour in Mauritania's second city Nouadhibou - in the far north - was inaugurated. Last week, representatives of the Ministry of Fisheries visited several Imraguen villages in the northern Banc d'Arguin national park. There, they discussed the functionalities of the established local artisanal fishing centres and the fisherman apprentice system with Imraguen representatives. Today, the Ministry announces it is set widen its sectoral programme and establish new artisanal fishing centres in the south of the country; in the capital Nouakchott and in coastal villages south of the capital, the Mauritanian news agency AMI reported. The new investments "aim at increasing the artisanal fish production and improving the incomes of the profiting populations," the Ministry said in a statement. Within this framework, the programme included "the training of 1230 fisherman apprentices, the final education of 675 fishermen and the training of 500 women to price catches and learn marketing techniques." The Ministry hopes the good results from its investments in the northern part of the country can be repeated in the Nouakchott area. It assesses that the programme will result in an increased production of 10.500 tonnes fish, the sedentarisation of affected fishermen, marine environmental protection and the establishment of credit institutions for trained fishermen and the women within the sector. The Project Coordinator, Sidi Ali Ould Sidi, in a statement said that: "since it's starting, the project in 2001 allowed the education of 180 fisherman apprentices and 102 women." This year, the project already had organised the further education of 100 fishermen, the training of 60 fishermen apprentices and 142 women. Within the end of the year, these numbers would be more than doubled, Ould Sidi said. The programme is partly financed by the African Development Bank and the Mauritanian government. The government did not inform of the costs of the investments. Mauritania's fishing industry started only 25 years ago, when the market for copper and iron collapsed and a severe drought shattered agriculture, leaving the country desperate for revenues. In the last 45 years, foreign vessels - most from the EU and Japan - however have caught an estimated 80 percent of the fish taken from West African waters. The remaining 20 percent is caught by local fishermen. Artisanal catches have been shrinking steadily due to the overfishing by foreign vessels.
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