Industrial fisheries in Guinea Bissau are mainly operated by foreign vessels chartered or reflagged to Guinea Bissau, under private or partnership agreements. None of the industrial vessels operating in Guinea Bissau are considered domestic (Gomes Barbosa, 2009). Their catches are generally landed elsewhere, notably in the Canary Islands (Spain) and Senegal (Anon, 2009) and are mainly not reported to Guinea Bissau (COPACE, 1981; Anon, 2010), nor anywhere else, despite the presence of observers on board some of the vessels (Anon, 2009). Belhabib and Pauly analysis of catches per origin of the fleet reveals over 33 groups of species targeted and caught by the industrial sector, clearly overlapping with small-scale targeted species, such as sardinellas, Scianids, Penaeus shrimps, and cephalopods, amongst others.

Industrial fisheries in Guinea Bissau are often straddling between the illegal, unreported and unregulated components of fisheries, as even legally operating vessels commit fisheries violations in the country. Most commonly from foreign origin, they can be illegal in the absence of a valid fishing authorization, or unreported and unregulated as most of their catches are unaccounted for. We consider legal, all vessels that have an authorization to fish within Bissau Guinean waters (presented in summary by flag in Table 1), and illegal all those that are otherwise. Not all the vessels that operate without authorization are caught or observed, and the analysis of the effectiveness of monitoring herein relies in part on those that were caught, and the illegal catch (footprint) of the entire fleet that operates illegally (caught or not). Herein, we estimate legal catches as all catches by industrial licensed vessels, and illegal catches as those taken by industrial vessels that did not hold authorizations to fish in Guinea Bissau, and count the number of infractions in the country. To reconstruct industrial legal fisheries catch data, we used data from Belhabib and Pauly (2015), along with effort data extracted from the General Direction of Industrial Fishing (DGPI) (2015). We then calculate catches as the product of the fishing effort and the catch per fishing effort. The fishing effort was defined as the number of vessels for demersal and shrimp trawlers and tuna vessels, per flag, given the convergence of the CPUE around an average of 1,200 t/boat/year, and 414 t/boat/year, respectively (Belhabib et al., 2014; Pauly et al., 2014), and as the capacity of fishing vessels in haul size (gross Registered Tonnage) and fishing days for larger pelagic trawlers (Belhabib and Pauly, 2015). Effort data on EU vessels under the Guinea Bissau/EU fishing agreement for 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015, were obtained from www.whofishesfar.org (Accessed on 25/07/2016), combined with national data obtained from the department of fisheries (Government of Guinea Bissau, unpub. data) by flag (Table 2). We extracted CPUE information from various regional studies, assuming the same vessel profile would have a similar catch per unit of effort (Belhabib et al., 2014, 2016b; Pauly et al., 2014). We assumed the CPUE for Eastern European and Russian pelagic trawlers was 14.8 kg/grt/day, and 150 fishing days per year (Belhabib et al., 2014, 2016b). We assumed a CPUE of 1,200t/boat/year for demersal and shrimp trawlers and 414t/boat/year for tuna vessels (Belhabib et al., 2012; Pauly et al., 2014; Belhabib and Pauly, 2015). We then multiplied the CPUE by the number of vessels by gear type between 2011 and 2015. We then compare the resulting data to the data on reported industrial catches provided by the Government of Guinea Bissau (unpub. data).

In this section, we assess catches by illegal industrial vessels, i.e., those that are not registered or licensed to fish in Guinea Bissau's waters. MCS in Guinea Bissau is mainly performed by armed patrols of the navy and coast guards at sea, but also targeted operations through the use of Vessel Monitoring Systems, and radars. In some instances, external support is acquired from the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission where patrol vessels² are made available to the country, and also Non-Governmental Organization efforts such as Greenpeace³ with presence of national authorities on board. Government data (Government of Guinea Bissau, unpub. data) on monitoring operations show 22 surveillance operations in 2013, 5 surveillance operations in 2014, 21 surveillance operations in 2015, 33 surveillance operations in 2016, and 19 surveillance operations as per August 2017 (Table 2). Whenever possible apprehended vessels are boarded by the navy, and investigated. Those that do not cooperate fall under the “refusal of cooperation” violation and are hence issued a fine. Only observed vessels can be interdicted. There are only a few instances where vessels were detected as committing an infraction through Vessel Monitoring System (e.g., entering a prohibited area) and are interdicted or sanctioned accordingly. As of 2017, 203 fishing vessels were granted licenses to fish within the Bissau Guinean EEZ⁴. Of these, 34⁵ had a history in fishing crimes and related IUU activities in the world, i.e., there is 20% chance that the vessels operating in Guinea Bissau under a legitimate license, will commit an offense under the country's legislation (Table 1).

To estimate illegal catches, we extrapolated the trend of the two last years of data presented by Doumbouya et al. (2017) forward to reflect upon the improvement of the monitoring system in terms of days at sea. This method follows the rational that the variation in monitoring will be proportional to the monitoring outcome (Belhabib et al., 2014), subject to external factors such as the capacity of the patrol vessels to reach fishing grounds on industrial vessels. We then analyzed the data on observed vessels, inspected vessels, and arrested vessels provided by the Department of Surveillance of Guinea Bissau for the years 2013 to 2017 (as of September), to detect any patterns in illegal fishing, i.e., variation over time.

In contrast to its neighbors, notably Senegal, Guinea Bissau does not have a long-standing fishing tradition (Campredon and Cuq, 2001), and while in the past, Nhominkas were commonly used, artisanal fishing by locals started only in the mid-1970s (Tvedten, 1990; Chavance, 2004). Thus, here the artisanal sector is divided into two categories, distinguished by the craft used, Senegalese Nhominka pirogues and local dug-out canoes, or pailão, which have a capacity that is a third of that of the Senegalese nhominka pirogue (Tvedten, 1990). There is an area reserved for artisanal and other small-scale sectors that is comprised between shore and 12 nautical miles off-shore, however, it is not restricted in nature, meaning that artisanal pirogues can legally venture beyond this point.

There are limited reported data for the artisanal fishing sector in Guinea-Bissau. Most of the data compiled relate to foreign fishers, or communities of foreign fishers, called “Nhominkas” (Belhabib and Pauly, 2015). Fishing by local artisanal fishers is conducted on a seasonal basis, as they cease their fishing activity during the agricultural and rainy season (Tvedten, 1990), and targets mainly bonga shad (E. fimbriata), meager (Argyrosomus regius) and shrimps (Belhabib and Pauly, 2015). Artisanal catches are calculated as the product of the fishing effort, i.e., number of vessels for each category, and the catch per boat per year. Belhabib and Pauly (2015) estimated artisanal catches for these two categories between 1950 and 2010 increasing from 7,100 tons in 1950 (all Nhominka) to 32,000 tons in 2000, declining to nearly 15,000 tons in 2010 with equal contribution from Nhominka and pailão fishers. We, hence, update catch estimates from Belhabib and Pauly (2015) by using effort data obtained from the Direction of artisanal fishing, between the years of 2010 and 2015, and the CPUE estimated by Belhabib and Pauly (2015). We assumed this CPUE was constant between 2010 and 2015 (8.67 t/boat/year for non-Nhominkas, and 30 t/boat/year for Nhominkas), as the total artisanal fishing effort declined, in addition to the lack of indication (anecdotal or not) that the CPUE has declined during 2010–2015 time period. We multiplied the number of boats by the CPUE and interpolated between anchor points to fill in the missing gaps (Table 3).

As of 2015, over 880 pirogues were authorized to fish within the artisanal sector⁶ (Table 4). We analyze the surveillance results data provided by the government of Guinea Bissau and assess observed vs. inspected vs. arrested pirogues against the total number of pirogues authorized to fish in the country.

Some authors report that most of the coastal population practice subsistence fishing (Said, 2007), others allude to thousands of women and subsistence fishers operating in Guinea Bissau (Garcia, 1992) and providing more animal protein than any other sectors for local consumption (Anon, 1994). This is compatible with the observation that almost all the animal protein consumed in Guinea Bissau comes from fish (Anon, 2009). To estimate subsistence catches in Guinea-Bissau (Table 5), we multiplied the population recorded by the World Bank in 2011 to 2015 (www.worldbank.org; Accessed 25/07/2016) by the amount of fish that comes from subsistence fishing per capita, i.e., the consumption derived from Belhabib and Pauly (2015). According to Dia and Bedingar (2001) the rate of consumption of fish in Guinea-Bissau is 26 kg/person/year, but taking into account the industrial fishing, artisanal fishing imports and exports, the value of consumption derived corresponds to 11 kg/person/year (Belhabib and Pauly, 2015), which we assume remained constant. Catches for 2016 and 2017 were projected based on the trend from 2011 to 2015. The 2011-2015 catch trend was then extrapolated to estimate subsistence catches for 2016 and 2017. We chose 2011 as a baseline year, which captures the visible change in the trajectory of subsistence catches.

Sport fishing is apparently a notable segment of tourism in the Bijagos archipelago (Anon, 2010), but little information is available on the number of visitors to the archipelago, or the number of tourists using the services of fishing ‘safaris’(Belhabib et al., 2016a). For 2012, the camps established for tourists in Guinea Bissau were visited by 1,200 persons, of which only 50% went fishing. There also were between 150 and 350 fishers (250 on average) for each of 4 other camps, and 500 visitors per year to a near-shore hotel, of which only a minority (20%) went fishing (Pierre Campredon, IUCN Guinea Bissau, pers. comm.). Therefore, the overall number of recreational fishers for 2012 was estimated as the sum of fishers for each camp and/or hotel, i.e., 1,500 fishers. Recreational catches were estimated as the product of the number of recreational fishers and the catch per unit of effort – expressed in number of fishers and number of days–extracted from Belhabib et al. (2016a). Using the 2007 anchor point (1,440 fishers) in Belhabib and Pauly (2015), we interpolated the trend between 2007 and 2012 to complete the estimate for 2011. We then calculated the number of fishers for 2013, 2014, and 2015 by multiplying the total number of visitors to Guinea Bissau (obtained from the World Bank database) by 4%, which corresponds to the number of visitors who practice fishing in Guinea Bissau (Belhabib and Pauly, 2015). We then multiplied the total number of fishers by a CPUE of 18 kg/tourist/day (Belhabib et al., 2016a). The 2012-2015 catch trend was then extrapolated to estimate recreational catches for 2016 and 2017. We chose 2012 as a baseline year, which captures the visible change in the trajectory of recreational catches.

Total catches were estimated as the sum of all catches (industrial, artisanal, recreational, and subsistence) then compared to the reported catch, i.e., the catch submitted by the Government of Guinea Bissau to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for all domestic catches, and those reported to the government of Guinea Bissau for all industrial foreign catches, as the law requires all vessels registered or licensed to fish in Guinea Bissau to report their catches to the Government of Guinea Bissau, regardless of their flag. We present below large-scale legal and IUU fisheries catches, and small-scale legal and IUU fisheries catches, which in turn includes artisanal, recreational and subsistence fisheries catch assessment. We then calculate the economic loss from IUU foreign fisheries in Guinea Bissau by multiplying the average annual ex-vessel price of fish by the total IUU industrial foreign catch in the country per year for 2017, as used in various other studies (Belhabib et al., 2014; Doumbouya et al., 2017). This estimate does not include catches by small-scale fisheries sectors, which are in theory captured by the local economy, knowing that small-scale catches are mainly kept for domestic use.

Overall industrial by the legal fleet catches in the waters of Guinea Bissau were estimated at 252,352 tons in 2011, increased to a peak of 487,456 tons in 2015 before decreasing to an estimated 280,620 tons in 2017 (Figure 2). These catches are taken by vessels which illustrate the same variation in number than the total catch. Overall, the number of unique vessels licensed to operate in Guinea Bissau has varied between 134 and 365 (maximum observed for 2015). Catches by the legal fleet are dominated by Chinese (20%) and Russian (30%) fleets, followed by EU fleets, notably Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Portugal with 15% of the total catch between 2011 and 2017 (Figure 2).

The industrial fleet operating in Guinea Bissau reports around 41% of its catches to the government of Guinea Bissau (Figure 3). Reporting levels vary during the period 2011–2017 (Figure 3), putting most of the industrial catch in the unreported category.

Total illegal catches increased from 26,708 t/year in 2010 to around 62,100 t/year in 2015, after which they plateaued at around 62,000 t/year in 2016 and 2017 with a slight decline (Figure 4). Overall, illegal industrial catches, i.e., catches taken by unauthorized vessels from the waters of Guinea Bissau, constituted the equivalent of 22% of the legal industrial catch in 2017.

The number of days of surveillance at sea has overall increased from 33 days in 2013 to 72 days in 2017 [We note that information for 2017 covers only the period January to September]. The number of surveillance operations, which depend on the availability of patrol boats, has varied with a minimum in 2014 (Table 2). The number of patrol days at sea per operation remained low at 3.12 days on average per year, however, the effectiveness measured as the number of arrested vessels per day at sea has improved from 0.21 in 2013 to 0.43 vessels in 2017. On average, each operation yields 1 arrested vessel (Table 2). The number of arrested vessels follows the same pattern than the number of inspected vessels with an increase by 7-fold and 3-fold, respectively (Figure 4). The number of days at sea follows the reverse pattern than the estimated illegal catches, the latter decline when the number of days at sea increases (Figure 4). We note that while patterns are revealed, conclusions could not be drawn as a longer MCS time series is needed to perform an adequate statistical significance analysis of the results.

Artisanal fisheries catches declined since 2010 from 15,272 t/year in 2010 to less than 14,311 t/year in 2015, and projected to decline further to reach less than 6,500 tons by the end of 2017 (Figure 5). Virtually, none of these catches are monitored, or reported to the FAO.

MCS campaigns also encompass the artisanal sector. Overall between 2013 and 2017 (September), around 840 pirogues were observed at sea, 820 were inspected, which resulted in 230 arrests over the same time period (Figure 6). The lowest number of operations, and days was performed in 2014, which explains the low number of arrested pirogues. On average, and with the exception of exceptionally high numbers in 2013, each day spent monitoring at sea, 1 pirogue gets arrested. Inspection activities result in the arrest of 1 in every 3 pirogues on average (Table 4), which is an indication that monitoring of coastal waters is more effective than monitoring of industrial fisheries in Guinea Bissau.

Overall, over the total number of pirogues licensed to fish in the waters of Guinea Bissau, around 4% on average is ever arrested for infringing upon local regulations (Figure 7).

Reconstructed subsistence catches for Guinea Bissau illustrate a continued increase from 16,700 t/year in 2010 to 21,236 t/year in 2017 (Figure 8). Reconstructed recreational catches were estimated at 200 tons in 2010 increasing to 146 tons in 2017 (Figure 8). None of the recreational and subsistence catches are ever reported officially.

Total small-scale catches, comprising artisanal, subsistence, and recreational fisheries, increased from 32,170 t/year in 2010 to a peak of around 44,700 t/year in 2013, driven by a peak in small-scale commercial (artisanal) fisheries catches, which constituted 56% of the total small-scale catch, then. Small-scale catches declined thereafter to around 27,800 t/year in 2017.