The IGCC/GCLME Project Status Report summarizes activities undertaken from June 2010 to May 2011. Key accomplishments include: conducting acoustic fish stock evaluations and training workshops; implementing habitat restoration demonstration projects; developing regional plans to reduce ship-based pollution; ongoing fisheries management planning and ecosystem mapping; and organizing numerous national and regional workshops. Overall, the project has made significant progress implementing planned activities and establishing the foundation for a permanent Guinea Current Commission to facilitate continued regional collaboration.

1. IGCC/GCLME Project Status report
IW-LEARN AFRICA CONFERENCE
Grahamstown, South Africa
By Stephen Maxwell Donkor,
Executive Secretary/Regional Coordinator
Interim Guinea Current Commission

2. A. Main Project Objectives
GCLME Project
The overall development goals of this project are
to:
Recover depleted fish stocks,
• Restore degraded habitats,
•Reduce land and ship-based pollution,
•Create an ecosystem-wide assessment and
management framework for sustainable use of
living and non-living resources in the GCLME,
•Establish viable regional consultative and
coordination mechanisms for joint actions in
transboundary management of the GCLME
including a Guinea Current Commission

3. GCLME Project
COMPONENTS
1. Recovery of depleted fisheries
2. Restore degraded habitats
3. Reduce land and ship-based pollution
4. Create an ecosystem wide assessment and
management framework for environmental
and living resource management
5. Establish viable regional consultative and
coordination mechanisms for transboundary
management of the GCLME including a
Guinea Current Commission

4. GCLME Project
Key Milestones
The IGCC/GCLME Project has made real progress and
successfully completed many of the activities set out at
inception in 2005 :
• The Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA).
• Strategic Action Programme (SAP), and the associated
National Programmes of Action (NPA) as well as
National Action Plans (NAP) have been prepared,
• Interim IGCC Secretariat and Inter-Ministerial
Committees established at the regional and national
levels respectively
• Transition to permanent Guinea Current Commission
has began.
• Partial implementation of the SAP (demonstration
projects, etc).
• SAP Implementation Project under preparation

5. GCLME Project B. Project Strategy
The IGCC/GCLME Strategy has been to develop and apply an effective
regional approach to:
Create improved legal/management frameworks and institutional structures
to address priority regional issues, including a Guinea Current Commission, a
Regional Fisheries Platform, and other regional and
national bodies such as the Inter-ministerial
Committees (IMC) for
conducting effective national and regional
interventions for rational fisheries
utilization, biodiversity conservation,
pollution prevention and coastal erosion
defence.

6. Project strategy (cont’d)
GCLME Project
Develop nationally endorsed
Strategic Action Program (SAP)and
National Action Plans (NAPs) with
accompanying sustainable financing
plans to lead the way towards
continued incremental improvement
to environmental state of the
GCLME, based on a solid
foundation of regional commitment
and consensus.

7. GCLME Project
Key Outcome
Establish viable regional consultative and
coordination mechanisms for transboundary
management of the GCLME including a Guinea
Current Commission
The IGCC Ministers in their 2nd statutory meeting
on 2nd July 2010 decided to establish a
permanent Guinea Current Commission in line
with their decision under the Abuja Declaration
in 2006.

8. Steps towards permanent Guinea Current
GCLME Project
Commission
1. Draft documents required for the establishment
Guinea Current Commission were prepared at the
request of the 6th SCM.
2. A related Inter-Agency process to propose options
for the establishment of the permanent Guinea
Current Commission completed.
3. Development of MOUs with FAO (signed), FCWC and
COREP completed.

9. Steps towards permanent Guinea Current
GCLME Project
Commission
4. National Action Plans: the 16 countries in the GCLME project
have prepared their Action
Plans, which include proposed policy and legal reforms,
investment needed and economic instruments
5. A portfolio of selected National Priority projects was established
by the IMCs for future country-level negotiations between sovereign
states and development partners.
6. Partnership Conference was organized in Douala, Cameroon.

10. LESSONS LEARNT
GCLME Project
1. The LME Concept is accepted as an integrative
Frame work by all 16 IGCC countries.
2. The NAPs and IMCs are best means of cohesive
national level management of Coast and
Marine resources.
3. Member states will provide funding resources
when can get direct benefits from projects (
500 million US$ Co-financing for SAP
implementation.)

11. Priorities for IW-LEARN
GCLME Project
1. Support for IGCC in setting up Guinea Current
Information Clearing House including sustenance of
GCLME Website.
2. Training modules for strengthening IMC at Country
level.
3. Twinning with Knowledge Centres of specific technical
issues such as Remote Sensing and GIS.
4. Twinning with RBOs (Niger, Congo, Volta, Mano, etc)
5. Need to establish linkages with Africa Policy processes
such as AMCOW and UN Water/Africa.

12. GCLME Project
merci! gracias!
obrigado! thank you!

13. GCLME Project
C. Assessment of Project Performance
and Achievement of Targets for the
period June
2010 to May 2011

14. 1- Recover Depleted Fish Stocks
GCLME Project
For the period June 2010 to May 2011, the following activities were
successfully undertaken under this component:
1. Through collaboration with the FAO Nansen project, the project
accomplished acoustic evaluation of pelagic fish resources, utilizing the
research vessel Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, in
the EEZs of Gabon and Congo in
June 2010. Thirteen scientific
participants from eight GCLME
countries participated in this survey.
The survey also collected benthic and
plankton samples as well
environmental data (temperature,
salinity etc).

15. GCLME Project
Stomach Content Analysis
2. The stomach contents collected during the surveys
were analysed at the Fish and Fisheries Regional
Activity Centre, INIP, Luanda, Angola.
Being a capacity
building activity, Eleven
participants from eight
GCLME countries
participated in this
training exercise.

16. Productivity Assessment
GCLME Project
3. 2nd Regional Productivity workshop held in Accra, 22-26th November 2010,
by the Regional Productivity and Biodiversity Centre, University of Ghana, Legon.
It was a capacity building
workshop for the national
scientists from the 16
GCLME countries on the
assessment of productivity
of the GCLME and
endorsement of a draft
report on marine
productivity of the
GCLME.

17. GCLME Project
4. 2nd Regional ECOPATH-ECOSIM
Workshop, 13-
17th December 2010, on the
ecosystem modelling
utilizing Ecopath with
Ecosim software.
The national scientists used
national data in
combination with data from
Dr. Fridtjof Nansen to
construct models based on
these data.
Modelling

18. GCLME Project
Modelling
The next steps are for the
scientists is to
disseminate the
modelling knowledge in
their countries and serve
to train other scientists
so that each country gets
the capacity of using the
models in the analyses of
their Fisheries
resources and
productivity indicators.

19. Mariculture
5. Sub regional Mariculture workshop, 23-25th February 2011, on
mariculture development
was conducted in collaboration with the YSLME, IW:LEARN and
Water Research Institute.
A follow-up on the
recommendations of the
workshop is being
implemented with
specific reference to
setting up a model cage
fish farm as a
demonstration project
which will stimulate
entrepreneurship
initially in polyculture
and later in mariculture.

20. GCLME Project
Aquaculture farm on the Volta lake

21. GCLME Project 2- Restore degraded habitats
For the period June 2010 to May 2011, the following activities were
successfully undertaken under this component:
1. A three-day meeting was
organised in Accra to enable
business and government leaders
to learn of the best waste
management practices and
technology available in Ghana.. A
major aim of the meeting was to set
up a network of enterprises and
agencies involved in waste
recycling.

22. Demonstration Projects
GCLME Project
2. Progress in the implementation of the demonstration projects
on which mostly serve to restore the habitat:
Nypa Palm Utilization and Mangrove restoration in Nigeria.

23. Demonstration Projects
GCLME Project
Controlling Leachate
Pollution from the
Phosphate Mines
in the coastal
waters, Togo.
Low cost technology
for coastal
protection in
Asinine, Cote
d’Ivoire

24. Demonstration Projects
GCLME Project
Creation of Marine Protected Areas in Benin.

25. GCLME Project
Demonstration Projects
Integrated Coastal Areas
Management in Kribi-
Camp Area,
Cameroon.
FIGURE 1: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION
OF THE CAMEROON COASTAL ZONE
AREA (Ngouanet, 2010)

26. 3 - Reduce land and ship-based pollution
GCLME Project
For the period June 2010 to May 2011, the following activities were
successfully undertaken
under this component:
1. The Emergency Protocol of the Abidjan Convention which was
developed with part funding by the IGCC/GCLME Project in a Letter
of Agreement with IMO. UNEP also contributed financially to the
legal review by National Legal Experts from IGCC/GCLME, BCC and
CCLME countries at in 2008 in Yaounde and also a Pre-COP Workshop
of the Abidjan COP 9. The Emergency Protocol was subsequently
adopted by COP 9.

27. GCLME Project
Oil Spill Contingency
2. The deterioration of the coastal and marine
environment is caused and/or exacerbated
by pollutants from shipping related, as well as land
based activities. Under the IGCC/GCLME project,
collaboration with IMO and IPIECA has resulted in a
regional oil/chemical spill contingency plan that
was updated/ refined through consultations and
discussed by all countries during the Abidjan
Convention COP9.

28. Ship Ballast Water Management
GCLME Project
3. The IGCC in collaboration with the GloBallast
Partnerships Project Coordination Unit of IMO conducted
a three day (15-17 June 2010) workshop with 2 days on a
training on the legal implementation of the Ballast Water
Management Convention and a half-day with particular
focus on the legal aspects of the BWM Convention, to
provide an input to the Regional Strategic Action Plan on
BWM adopted by the Regional Task Force in Abidjan, July
2009.

29. Oil Spill Response
GCLME Project
Interim Guinea Current Commission (IGCC) in
cooperation with the International Maritime Organization
(IMO) and International
Petroleum Industry
Environmental Conservation
Association (IPIECA) will be
organizing a Regional
workshop on dispersants use
policies in West and Central
Africa, on 22-24 June, 2011.

30. 4 - Create an ecosystem wide assessment and
management framework for environmental
GCLME Project
and living resource management
For the period June 2010 to May 2011, the following
activities were successfully undertaken
under this component:
1. Monitoring the implementation of fisheries plans for
shrimps and demersal resources are ongoing following the
framework developed at the IGCC Workshop on Fisheries
Management Planning in Douala, Cameroon in 2009.

31. GCLME Project
Mapping
2. GIS mapping on breeding and nursery grounds
of important fish species in the Gulf of Guinea
was initiated under a sub contract with the
IGCC/GCLME Environmental Information
Management RAC at the University of Lagos in
Nigeria.

32. Surveys
GCLME Project
3. Sub regional survey in the
assessment of pelagic fish stocks
waters between Gabon and
Congo in cooperation with the
EAF–Nansen Project of FAO in
June 2010 which was followed
by a hands-on regional capacity
development workshop in
stomach content analyses in
Regional centre for Fisheries,
INEP, in Angola

33. GCLME Project
Surveys
4. Workshops and surveys on estimating/
quantifying economic benefits of environmental
and social services provided by healthy
ecosystems in the GCLME were conducted in
2010. Initial estimates of value of ecosystems
goods and services is between 13-17 billion US
dollars.

34. Workshops and Meetings
GCLME Project
5. Overall the Project organized 48
Workshops/Meetings (30 at National level and 18
at regional Level) since the 7th Steering
Committee meeting in June 2010. Main focus on
National Workshops was on the development and
validation of National Action Plans (NAPs) and
dissemination of results of the Demo projects
which were complete.

35. Conclusions
GCLME Project
Overall the IGCC/GCLME Project has made great
strides in implementing the project activities planned
and has made up for the one year suspension of
activities in 2008.
A “No cost extension” has been approved by 8th SCM
for the SAP Development Phase to enable, among
others, consultations to be completed on the
establishment of An independent, permanent Guinea
Current Commission

36. GCLME Project
merci! gracias!
obrigado! thank you!