Fisheries and the Blue Economy resources will continue to play a pivotal role in the global, continental, regional, and national economies through the provision of livelihoods and humankind’s socio-economic development.
This was said by Principal Secretary State Department for the Blue Economy and Fisheries (SDBEF) Betsy Muthoni Njagi in a speech read on her behalf by Secretary of Administration (SDBEF) Alan Machari while addressing a Multi–Agency team forum, today at Mombasa Beach Hotel.
The Multi-Agency team, drawn from different government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) must pilot the project on Electronic Monitoring of fishing vessels and its task will be to provide oversight and technical guidance.
She emphasized the government’s commitment to promoting ICT to support monitoring, and surveillance to protect local fishing grounds from poachers using tools such as GPS, Radio, and mobile phones to locate and report abuses.
The Electronic Monitoring system will complement other legacy systems currently in use, but risk being overtaken by advancing technologies in the monitoring of major national and regional fishing areas with a satellite-enabled Vessel Monitoring System.
“Kenya has undertaken many key interventions including strengthening of policy and legal framework, established and strengthened institutional capacity, ratification of the Port State Measures Agreement (SPMA), development of fishing ports for example, Liwatoni, strengthening, monitoring, and surveillance,” he said
The PS supported the possibility of having the EMS data stored and analyzed in Kenya for use by other stakeholders and interest groups.
By Francis Hwaga
