Rear Admiral Calvin M. Foster, Director, Maritime Partnership Programme for Naval Forces-Africa who is Vice Commander of US Sixth Fleet, made the pledge when speaking at a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
“We are all aware of the piracy challenge and for so many years in the region, there was a significant challenge with piracy. And the threat became the driver for us to work together more closely. Some countries lack the ability to defeat the pirate threat because they do not have the radars, the sea vision, ships, or cutters to come and prosecute that legal activity,” he said.
“As we started looking at that problem together, we formed regional and international coalitions to find the pirates, to prosecute them correctly and to restore the sovereignty of those shipping lanes and those nations together. It’s a very big problem, the ocean is very big and the blue economy is global and it affects so many people. So, if we go after the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUUF) problem, there will be many more benefits across the region.”
Ambassador Robert Scott, Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Engagement, United States Africa Command, said economic progress is achieved when offshore is properly controlled and regulated as a means to address maritime challenges.
“There are representatives from 15 countries taking part in the Africa Center for Strategic Studies that are currently working through it is incredibly complex. In most countries in Africa and around the world, around 40 to 70 percent of all protein that the population has access to is from fish. And so, if your fish stocks are going away, this stresses the economy and the society because a lot of people are dependent on them. As fish stocks decline, people become more desperate and take desperate measures to get fish,” he said.
“All these things are tied together. The blue economy is very specific. We tend to think – ocean and land – you cannot have security in land without security on the ocean and vice versa. The economy thrives when both economies thrive especially in countries like Tanzania where the coastline is so long and fishing is so important. Those are the threats that people are looking at as well.”
Admiral Foster highlighted that among the key measures towards ensuring maritime security and safety is through encouraging and sharing of information and expertise among the collaborating countries.
“It is one thing to look at the information on the screen and it is another thing to share it internationally, regionally and encourage each country to develop a maritime operation centre, a mock centre. That operation centre brings together the coast guard of the naval and sometimes the army, the judicial system, the drug enforcement authority to ensure that when something illegal is found, that information is translated to prosecute that illegal activity and hold them accountable.”
He said the continuation of forums and dialogues such as the African Center for Strategic Studies as well as other maritime forums are designated to provide room to discuss and try to understand the problems facing the maritime sector in Tanzania, to invest and develop the technologies together to improve maritime security.
"The days of illegal activity are coming to an end. That is because with our collected and committed investment in maritime security we stand to build and sustain trust in each other to eliminate these activities and work toward a confident future of prosperity.” he said.
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