It's a great pleasure for me to tell you what is going on in Namibia at the moment, especially on the side of the longline fleet. Since February 2009 I have been organising a trip with one of the hake longline vessels so that we can get a better idea of the contact this fleet has with seabirds. I have been in contact with all the relevant fishing companies that can offer me a place onboard their longline vessels, but we rely on them having a space available for me to use and nothing has been available yet.
The complexity of this is that there is a new fishery regulation in Namibia that requires all longline vessels to carry at least two fishery observers onboard. This obviously excludes us from getting a place on the vessels so we need to find a solution soon to this issue. I have kept trying though and now Corvima Fishing Company have tried to find me some space on one of their longline vessel which will sail on Sunday. This vessel can only accommodate 34 people, including the observers, so I am still confirming whether I am one of those people!To ensure that we will be able to gain access to this fishery more easily in the future we are working locally with the government departments to see if we can form an agreement to help us gather further information on seabird interactions in this fishery.