Cape Verde Leads African Fight Against Fishing Waste
Cape Verdean President José Maria Neves has launched a major diplomatic initiative to tackle the tide of industrial fishing waste polluting the African coast. In a formal proposal sent to 20 fellow African leaders, Neves called for a unified regional front to protect the continent’s “blue economies” from the devastating impact of marine litter.
A Transboundary Crisis
The letters were dispatched to heads of state in Atlantic coastal nations, spanning from Senegal and Nigeria to Angola and South Africa. President Neves emphasized that marine pollution—particularly plastic and discarded fishing gear—is a transboundary crisis that no single nation can solve in isolation.
“Aware that marine litter is not an isolated challenge for Cape Verde, but a problem that affects ocean health and the sustainability of our shared blue economies, I propose the strengthening of bilateral and regional cooperation,” the Presidency stated in an official release.
The Toll of Industrial Fishing
The scale of the crisis is particularly visible in Cape Verde’s protected regions. Approximately 75% of the waste accumulating on the archipelago’s shores—including abandoned nets, ropes, and buoys—is estimated to originate from industrial fishing fleets operating in the Atlantic. This debris poses a lethal threat to endemic wildlife and disrupts critical nesting grounds for endangered species, such as sea turtles.
The President’s proposal follows his recent visit to the Santa Luzia integral nature reserve, an uninhabited island north of the archipelago. Seeing the environmental degradation firsthand prompted the call for legislative and diplomatic action.
A Three-Pillar Strategy
Neves has outlined three key objectives to modernize the region’s approach to ocean conservation:
- Policy Harmonization: Aligning waste management laws across coastal nations to ensure consistent standards.
- Gear Innovation: Encouraging the transition to biodegradable fishing materials to prevent “ghost fishing” by discarded nets.
- Legal Accountability: Integrating mandatory environmental responsibility clauses into international fishing agreements to reduce pollution at the source.
Beyond regional policy, Neves is advocating for African nations to adopt a unified stance at international ocean conferences. By speaking with a single voice, the President believes the continent can more effectively secure global financing and technical support to mitigate the impacts of transboundary waste.
President Neves maintains that through strategic cooperation, African nations can transform current environmental threats into an opportunity to strengthen the protection of their marine heritage for future generations.
Image: Pexels – Bảo Huỳnh
