UN mission in Liberia documents illegal fishing and bilge dumping

The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has documented illegal fishing and the dumping of bilge and other waste in the country's international waters, the senior UN envoy to the country said today, recommending expanded powers of intervention to deal with the problem.

Interviewed by the UN News Service, UNMIL chief Jacques Klein said: "Knowing that foreign ships were passing through Liberia's international waters and bilge dumping and fishing, I sent out some aircraft to patrol the region, and within one two and a half hour period a week ago, we identified 11 ships."

The operators were clearly avoiding detection. "All of them had their names covered, none of them were flying a national flag, and all of them had 10- to 15-kilometre nets where they were scooping up everything there was to scoop up," he said.

The ships scattered when they saw the UN aircraft. A follow-up days later found similar illegal activity which, because it involves toxic substances, hurts not only the environment but also the economy of one of the world's poorest countries.

Since Liberia lacks the ability to take enforcement action in response, Mr. Klein said UNMIL took action at the Government's request "at least to document what's happening."

"Ultimately, it would be nice to have the authority to actually force these ships to come into the harbour," he added.

The aim, he explained, would not be to impound the ships, but to make them pay standard fines. That, "at least would generate some revenue for the Government of Liberia."

Reviewing accomplishments over the past year, he noted that in Liberia the UN has:

disarmed 100,000 ex-combatants and taken their weaponsdestroyed 7 million rounds of ammunition fed 600,000 people dailyimmunized more than 800,000 children, andtrained 13,000 teachers.

But Mr. Klein stressed that numerous challenges remain, including returning some 500,000 displaced people to their homes during the first quarter of 2005 and holding free and fair elections in October next year.