Canoe fishermen in the Central Region will on Wednesday start a protest against industrial trawlers engaged in illegal fishing - saiko.

The fishermen will join their colleagues from other regions to stage the protest to back home their call for Saiko, illegal fishing to be stopped.

More than 200 communities along Ghana’s coastline rely on fisheries as their primary source of income but the illegal practice of ‘saiko’ fishing – the transshipment of fish at sea from industrial trawlers to local canoes – has had a particularly destructive impact on their livelihoods.

JoyNews’ Central Regional correspondent, Richard Kwadwo Nyarko, who spent weeks in an undercover investigation on the high seas returned with exclusive footages on how Ghana’s fisheries resources are being depleted.

Richard showed in Joynews’ Hotline documentary, titled “Saiko: When the last Fishing is caught,” what authorities have denied existed.

The fishermen say the effect of the transshipment has not only affected the fishermen along Ghana’s coastal communities but also the fishmongers who are the recipients of the catch of the fishermen at the beach.

One of the fishermen, Nana Kweigya told Richard Kwadwo Nyarko, Wednesday’s protest is just a precursor to a bigger national protest to make government listen to their cry by clamping down on the illegal activities of the bigger vessels at sea.

“We are yet to sea any commitment by government to halt the activities of these fishing trawlers that are depleting our fisheries resources. What they are doing is a threat to our livelihood. They just forcing us to abandon our century-old trade, he stressed.