Buvuma Authority set to carry out boat registration to curb illegal fishing

Buvuma Island Authority is set to carry out boat registration in a bid to curb illegal fishing in the area and to avoid all the illegal activities carried out by unregistered boats.

This was revealed by Geoffrey Deyongera, a senior officer in charge of licensing in the ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

He noted that the boat registration exercise in Buvuma Island district will help to maximise benefits from fishing industry noting that all registration exercise is free.

He said that without boat registration, it is so challenging where at times boats which are not registered and do not have number plates can be used to carry out illegal activities.

He said free registration of boats is aimed at fighting illegal fishing.

"But when someone has a license, its very difficult for someone to use his boat in illegal fishing, when you have a registered boat ,when your boat is in a good condition ,it’s very difficult for someone to put it in illegal fishing ,so boat licensing ,boat registration ,and number plates are helping us to stop illegal fishing," he said.

He noted that the registration process will continue until all the boats in the Island are registered.

"This is not going to stop because the number of boats that we registered and the ones that have been licensed are few, everybody that has no license or number plate is going to be pulled out of water,"he noted.

He called upon all the fishermen to hasten the registration of their boats to avoid inconveniences.

He noted that a number of boats have been allocated per district to enable fishing without over utilisation of the resources.