SWIO Countries Unite to Strengthen Monitoring and Combat Illegal Fishing

May 2025 —Sandy Davies, (Senior Fisheries and Environment Director), Andréa Durighello (Fisheries Expert) and Malebogo Seofeleng (Project Administrator) travelled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to present a two-day South West Indian Ocean (SWIO) regional workshop on strengthening the implementation of the Guidelines for Minimum Terms and Conditions (MTC) for Foreign Fisheries Access in the Southwest Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission (SWIOFC) Region (the MTC Guidelines)

The SWIOFC member states, including Comoros, France, Kenya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Yemen share the important fisheries resources of the SWIO. In 2019, they introduced the voluntary MTC Guidelines as a key development aimed at fostering sustainable fisheries management and enhancing regional cooperation. The guidelines were created in response to the urgent need for a unified approach to fisheries governance in the region, with the goal of maximising socio-economic benefits for SWIOFC member States while ensuring the sustainability of their fisheries resources.

Sandy Davies emphasised that “the spirit of the MTC is to grow the participation of African coastal States in the tuna fishery while ensuring sustainable fishing practices. Achieving this requires the coastal States to collaborate and align their processes by developing common access and monitoring systems for foreign fishing vessels. Through working together the region can benefit more and take better care of the resources.”

Hosted with support from WWF’s Sustainable Blue Economy (SWIO-SBE) Programme, funded by Norad, and facilitated by NFDS Africa, officials and technical experts from six countries—Comoros, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, and the Maldives, regional organisations such as the SWIOFC, SADC MCSCC, the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), and the South Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement (SIOFA), along with a regional civil society platform, SWIOTUNA, were also represented.

The insights and recommendations will be discussed at the upcoming SWIOFC Working Party on Collaboration and Cooperation in Tuna Fisheries (WPCCTF) scheduled for 17 – 20 June, 2025, in Mauritius.