Nigeria, Norway Partner On Satellite Surveillance To Curb Illegal Fishing, Protect Marine Resources
The Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, raised concerns over foreign vessels plundering local fish stocks and reselling the catch to Nigerians at exorbitant rates. The post Nigeria, Norway Partner…
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has long plagued Nigeria's coastal waters, with foreign trawlers accused of exploiting weak monitoring capacity to overfish within Nigerian territorial waters and, in some cases, offload their catch back to local markets at inflated prices. The Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, created to oversee Nigeria's maritime and fisheries resources, has repeatedly flagged the economic losses this causes local fishing communities and the broader blue economy, which the government has identified as a priority sector for diversifying revenue away from oil.
Norway, which has advanced satellite-based fisheries monitoring systems and a history of maritime cooperation with West African nations, is positioned as a technical partner to help Nigeria track vessel movements and detect illegal activity in its waters. Both outlets agree on the broad outline of the partnership and the minister's concerns about foreign exploitation of fish stocks, though details on the scope, funding, timeline for deployment, and enforcement mechanisms once illegal activity is detected have not yet been specified.