Porto Amboim:Participants of the seminar on Fishing and Aquaculture recommended on Saturday the enhancement of cooperation between monitoring institutions and justice administration.
According to Angola Press News Agency, the final communiqué of the event, which took place from the 12th to the 17th of the current month, emphasized the need to disseminate acquired knowledge to other inspectors and sector agents to progressively strengthen fisheries surveillance.
Participants committed to performing their duties with professionalism, impartiality, discipline, and technical rigor, adhering to legal procedures during inspections and evidence processing, while preserving the integrity of the chain of custody.
At the closing session, the Deputy Director-General of Fisheries Surveillance, António Pascoal, highlighted the training as a learning phase and an investment in reinforcing the technical, professional, and ethical competencies of inspectors to improve the quality of fisheries and aquaculture activity surveillance in Angola.
He noted that the fisheries sector plays a fundamental role in food security, job creation, income generation, and the country's economic and social development. Therefore, he stressed the need for preparing professionals capable of acting competently, responsibly, and impartially, respecting existing legislation.
He underscored the strategic importance of fisheries surveillance in preventing and combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, protecting aquatic biological resources, sustaining ecosystems, and ensuring compliance with fishing activity regulations.
Pascoal emphasized the necessity for coordinated action between central services, regional monitoring centers, and other competent institutions to address sector challenges, which require cooperation, responsible information sharing, and response capability.
During the training, participants discussed issues related to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) States' project, risk assessment as a tool for detecting and combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, team preparation and management in incident scenes, as well as methodologies and models for processing and collecting evidence, among other topics.
