Chronic under-investment, archaic practices and under-development have dogged Ghana’s fishing industry since the first attempts to modernise the sector in the early 1960s. But as fish stocks plummeted, a new challenge - pirate fishing - has emerged, posing a threat to the sector. The illegal fishing industry is worth an estimated $9 billion a year, and is rapidly depleting Ghana’s fish stocks, undercutting the local industry. Investigators have found boats registered in Europe, China and North Korea, illegally trawling off the West African coast. According to a Greenpeace and Environmental Justice Foundation report, foreign companies who register trawlers stay on the sea for years, changing crews, refueling and unloading their catch into refrigerated boats on international waters, though the law prohibits these practices. The study added that Ghana’s under-funded police force and over-subscribed navy mean pirate fishers see the West African coast as an easy catch, and work unchallenged. The sophisticated smuggling operations are carried out by fleets of trawlers, able fish deep waters and sweep up thousands of tonnes of fish in a matter of minutes, it added. While local fishers use sustainable practices which have kept stocks stable for generations, pirates use nets which trawl. The fishing industry, which used to employ over 20 percent of Ghana’s population, now employs just 10 percent. Though Ghanaian fishermen net a paltry 420,000 tonnes annually, yet an estimated 30 percent of fish sold in Europe comes from Ghanaian shores. Presently Ghanaians consume a modest 880,000 tonnes of fish every year. Notwithstanding this, Gladys Asmah, Minister of Fisheries recently stated that the deficit of 460,000 tonnes would be met with imports from Morocco, Angola and Mauritania. By Yepoka Yeebo