Is Foreign Trawling Benefiting West Africa?

A new blog post by John Virdin, Director of the Ocean and Coast Policy Program, in chinadialogue ocean explores the outcomes when poorer coastal African nations and island countries try to make money by selling access to their fish-abundant waters to companies from richer countries with large fishing fleets. "Done well, these arrangements can contribute significantly to the development of lower-income countries," Virdin writes. However, "Some governments capture as little as 2% of the revenue generated by foreign fleets fishing in their waters."