Environmental activists fighting against the harvesting of live sea mammals and certain types of birds by a Chinese company and a Russian vessel chartered
to do the job celebrated a small victory after it became known that the Ryazanovka will be scrapped.
This after the acting senior commercial manager at
Namport, Elias Mwenyo, and the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources’s
permanent secretary, Moses Maurihungirire, both said that the ship is not in
Namibian waters to capture live sea mammals for the aquarium trade in the Far
East.
When the ship moved from anchorage site to a berth
in the harbour for replenishment of food and fuel and thereafter moving to a
new anchorage site in the bay speculation was rife that the vessel was indeed
busy catching live mammals. This after both the Minister of Fisheries and
Marine Resources, Bernhardt Esau and his permanent secretary said that neither
the Chinese company nor the vessel has received a permit for the capture
effort.
“Port control as well as officials from the
ministry was on a permanent watch to monitor the position of the vessel
visually and by radar. He also said the ship discharged its nets and smaller
boats used to place the nets into storage ashore in order for repairs to take
place,” Mwenyo said.
Mwenyo said the vessel came to Walvis Bay for
repairs, and has been at anchorage for the past four months waiting for an
opening to go on the dry docks for repairs. In this regard Elgin Brown &
Hamer Namibia announced that it will facilitate the repairs of the Ryazanovka
but only after it could be established that it will not continue with the
capture effort.
Mwenyo said the vessel’s documents which allowed it
to come for repairs have since expired and need to be renewed by the
Classification Society before repairs could be done.
“The vessel cannot leave the port without legal
documents, which makes it impossible for it to be involved in illegal
activities,” he said.
In the meantime members of the environmental activists
established from Namport that the Russian owners of the vessel have made the
decision to scrap the vessel. The cost estimate to have the Ryazanovka repaired
for seaworthiness and the classification society were deemed too expensive.
It also came to light that the
Russian Embassy was concerned about the negative publicity and recently
visited the vessel and the captain. The announcement to scrap the ship came
after the