- The Liberian government earlier this year distributed 400 automatic identification system (AIS) transponders to small-scale fishers in the counties of Grand Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, Margibi and Montserrado.
- The devices transmit a vessel’s position and speed via radio signals, and Liberian authorities say they hope it will help in speeding up responses to vessels that are in distress.
- However, many small-scale fishers appear reluctant to adopt the new device, with some saying they would prefer GPS-equipped devices that let them track their own location.
- The Liberia Artisanal Fishermen Association (LAFA), an advocacy group, blames the low adoption rate on the inadequate involvement of fishers during the design and rollout of the project.
MONROVIA — In Liberia, a country where small-scale fishers number in the tens of thousands, fishers go missing at sea every year. Some, like a crew of four rescued 54 nautical miles (100 kilometers) off the coast in 2020, are fortunate.
The Liberia Artisanal Fishermen Association (LAFA), an advocacy group, has, over the years, petitioned the government to improve the safety of these fishers, most of whom use traditional dugout canoes. Some of the boats have outboard motors. But until recently, almost none had a way to broadcast their location.
Earlier this year, the campaign received a boost when the Liberian government procured 400 automatic identification system (AIS) transponders from South Africa. The solar-powered devices were distributed to artisanal fishermen in the counties of Grand Cape Mount, Grand Bassa, Margibi and Montserrado.
AIS devices transmit a vessel’s position and its speed via radio signals. These can be picked up by other vessels and also by receivers located on land. The system was developed to aid navigation at sea. But in recent years, AIS has also been used to map fishing effort and activity. It’s deployed mostly by larger vessels (longer than 24 meters, or 79 feet), and less so by smaller boats used by artisanal fishers.
While officials and some fishermen consider the initiative in Liberia a step in the right direction, many of the fishers whom Mongabay spoke to in Grand Cape Mount and Margibi said they’re hesitant to install the devices. Their primary complaint is that the AIS device doesn’t address their needs.
The government’s rationale is that better adoption rates would enable the Liberian Coast Guard (LCG) and patrol vessels of the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA) to monitor the movement of these canoes and thus respond quickly in an emergency. It also makes the argument that AIS would make the small canoes more visible to larger trawlers, thereby prevent collisions and keeping the trawlers from encroaching into Liberia’s inshore exclusion zone (IEZ), which is meant only for artisanal fishing.
But some say the AIS devices won’t reduce the risk for fishers out at sea. Charles S. Brown, who heads the association of fishermen in the town of Robertsport, in Grand Cape Mount county, told Mongabay that he thinks a device using the more common GPS technology would be more meaningful for fishermen than an AIS transponder. “The current system only allows NaFAA monitors to know our position, but we are not able to know our own position,” he said.
Mathew Donor, a fisherman in Marshall City, Margibi county, also expressed reservations. Earlier this year, he was unable to find his way back home while at sea, and ended up attempting to land in neighboring Sierra Leone. “For us, we appreciate the government for the AIS, but we would prefer a GPS instead,” he said, reflecting on his experience.
Godwin Kennedy is one of the few fishermen in Robertsport trained to teach his peers how to operate the AIS device. For him, the technology has enormous benefits, including helping the Coast Guard and NaFAA patrol vessels locate fishermen in trouble. “We were trained to press a red light on the device whenever we need help in a time of distress,” he said.
On an August afternoon, Mongabay met Barclay Junior, a fisherman in Robertsport, a sprawling fishing community about 90 km (56 miles) northwest of Monrovia. Junior had had a poor day’s fishing, returning with very little catch. As he attempted to mount an AIS device on his canoe, he told Mongabay: “I hope this will help drive those big vessels [trawlers] far away from us.”
Whether it will reduce run-ins between small-scale fishers and large industrial vessels remains to be seen.
Liberia’s IEZ came into force in 2010. It aims to protect the livelihoods of artisanal fishermen and the marine ecosystem by keeping trawlers outside a 6-nautical-mile (11-km) perimeter the shore. In 2017, then-president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf attempted to reduce the limit to 4 nmi (7.4 km), but repealed the executive order amid pushback. In 2020, the government loosened restrictions to allow semi-industrial vessels to fish starting at 4 nmi from shore.
Notwithstanding these restrictions, encounters between small-scale fishermen and industrial fishers are widespread across Liberian waters. About 77% of the fishermen interviewed in a study on how distant-water fleets impact coastal fishing communities said that industrial trawlers negatively affect their fishing activities. They cited collisions with industrial vessels and destruction of artisanal fishers’ gear.
In Bushrod Island, a suburb of Monrovia, sits the office complex of the Fisheries Management Center (FMC), an arm of NaFAA, the fisheries regulator.
“At present, whenever a trawler crosses into the IEZ, we communicate with the Liberian agent to understand why and later mandate an inspection,” Isaac Patrick Johns, the FMC’s associate director for monitoring, control and surveillance, told Mongabay. He pointed to a large screen before him, where the positions of vessels operating in Liberia’s waters were visible.
Governments rely on vessel monitoring system (VMS) data that commercial fishing boats broadcast to the FMC. This is a GPS-based system that authorities use to monitor compliance with fishing regulations, but is usually not accessible to the public.
James Logan, secretary-general of LAFA, the artisanal fishermen’s association, said local fishermen weren’t adequately involved in the design of the program to distribute AIS devices, which he warned could pose a challenge to the initiative’s overall success. He proposed that a representative of LAFA be posted at the FMC to ensure transparency and fairness in the monitoring and adjudication of disputes involving trawlers and artisanal fishermen.
If more fishers use the AIS devices, they could also be a tool for better fisheries management, Johns at the FMC told Mongabay. He said the devices would provide crucial data on fishing patterns and locations. Fisheries data collectors in Liberia already gather catch data at landing sites. Combined with information on where artisanal fishers are operating out at sea, it could provide a clearer picture of small-scale fishers’ fishing effort, which is harder to monitor.
It could also shed light on the health of targeted species and their distribution. “We are able to know exactly where a specific fish species is being caught by comparing the data collected from the landing sites with the positioning on the AIS dashboard,” Johns said.
Banner image: Artisanal fishers pull in a fishing net. Image by kath37 via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Citation:
Jueseah, A. S., Kirk, A. I., Finkbeiner, E. M., Kollie, N. I., Fitzpatrick, J., Virdin, J., … Dalton, K. H. (2025). Distant-water fleets, local consequences: Lessons from a case study in Liberia. npj Ocean Sustainability, 4(1). doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00153-2
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