The Seychelles Fisheries Authority (SFA) commissioned a new vessel on Friday that will be used for monitoring and identifying illegal activities in the Seychelles waters.

The vessel "Surveillance 2," which costs $920,000, has been donated by the Third South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Governance and Shared Growth Project, known as SWIOFish3, a project that has now come to an end.

The commissioning of the new vessel was done in a small ceremony at the Victoria Fishing Port. The Minister for Fisheries and the Blue Economy, Jean-Francois Ferarri, said that the addition of the new vessel will help confront unsustainable fishing practices and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

"The Mahe Plateau, a critical area for biodiversity and fisheries, has been under immense pressure from unsustainable practices," he said.

Ferrari added: "Surveillance 2 will help us identify and apprehend those who exploit our marine resources unlawfully, and it will send a clear message that we are committed to safeguarding our Seychelles' waters."

Ferarri described the vessel as one of "hope, handcrafted and equipped with the latest technology to protect our waters and ensure the sustainable use of our marine resource."

Surveillance 2, which will have a crew of four, led by skipper Erol Raguin, has been built in the Philippines, by a company called Stoneworks Specialists. It took nine months to complete. It was delivered to Seychelles in June just before the SWIOfish3 project came to an end.

The crew of four for the vessel. (Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

The director for Blue Economy, Terrence Crea, handed over the keys of the vessel to the chief executive of SFA, Jan Robinson, during the ceremony.

Robinson shared a few words of thanks to everyone who made the purchase of this vessel possible and said, "This comes at an opportune time, where we've seen a threefold increase this year alone, in the amount of IUU that has been detected and apprehended in our waters."

He added that the vessel will greatly help in dealing with that.

Before taking on the seas, the vessel was blessed by Deacon Aubrey Pon-Wayeo of the Roman Catholic Church.