NFFO Services in Mauritania!

In March 2008 NFFO Services took on an international flavour.

At the start of the year, Dave Bevan had an informal discussion with representatives of PGS Marine Geophysical, a seismic company operating a fleet of seismic vessels across the world.  Dave wanted to identify the level of their North Sea seismic operations for the year ahead, in order to assess potential impacts on NFFO members.  PGS told him that they had no major survey work planned at that time.  The discussion then took an unexpected turn – PGS, announced they were planning a 40-60 day long seismic survey off the coast of Mauritania and Senegal, and asked NFFO Services if they could provide an experienced Liaison Officer who could assist them with this job!  They felt that as a result of our experience in seismic operations we perhaps held the key to much better cooperation from Mauritanian fishermen.

Jim Buckingham, NFFO Services’ longest serving fisheries liaison skipper with extensive experience of seismic operations was nominated as probably the best candidate   He flew out to Dakar on 9th March, prior to the start of the survey to hold meetings with representatives from the Ministry of Fisheries and local fishermen’s groups.  The aim was to facilitate much closer dialogue and establish working relations between the survey vessel and local fishermen, with a view to increased cooperation, as practiced in UK waters.  Jim worked hard to better understand the level and type of fishing activity in or near the survey area and had to explain to fishermen what the survey involved, the equipment that would be used and how it might affect them.  Speaking French proved to be a invaluable for Jim in fulfilling his role in Mauritania.

The survey, conducted by Ocean Explorer began on 20 March and Jim has reported that so far, things are progressing well!

Red dots represent open canoes fishing with static nets and the red box represents the survey area.