His comments come at the same time as environmentalists are calling for a ban on fishing in nearly a third of the world's oceans.

Over-fishing is believed to have wiped out over 90 per cent of the globe's large fish.

Iyambo said the much-used expression "too many fishermen chasing too few fish" has never before been more apt.

"This is because gross fishing over-capacity has been allowed to develop.

The inescapable fact is that it is the industrialised nations that have created this mess," Iyambo said.

The only way to reduce pressure on stocks would be a reduction in vessel numbers.

"Anything else is simply window dressing," Iyambo said.

Iyambo was speaking at an international conference for fisheries ministers in Vigo, Spain, last week.

Iyambo urged fisheries ministers at the conference to use their political will to address the over-capacity problem in a way that "brings about meaningful results".

Namibia has also been hit by poor fishing stocks, which have particularly depressed the pelagic (pilchard) sector.

Last year the Government announced a zero pelagic quota in a bid to allow stocks to recover.

Iyambo's remarks came shortly after a dramatic recommendation made at the 5th World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, to ban fishing in 30 per cent of the world's oceans.

Co-author of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report making the recommendation, Callum Roberts, said this was the only way that the crisis caused by over-fishing would be averted.

Speaking on the Carte Blanche programme on M-Net on Sunday, Roberts said: "If we want to have more fish then really we need to fish less, and that means closing some areas of the ocean to fishing.

It also means reducing the overall amount of fishing effort that goes on".

According to recent research reported in the journal Nature world-wide fisheries have wiped out more than 90 per cent of large fish from the oceans.

The WWF states in a press release that "faced with depleted fish stocks, governments should urgently take measures to expand marine reserves".

The main finding of the WWF study is that marine reserves help depleted stocks of commercially important fish to rapidly recover.

Clear evidence is provided in the report that stocks expand between two to five times in just five years of protection.

The recommendation of the report is that in future reserves must cover up to a third of the oceans if both conservation and fishery goals are to be met.

Currently only 0,01 per cent of the seas and oceans are "off-limits" to fishermen.

Roberts said on Carte Blanche that over the last 50 years intensive fishing has brought the world's 17 largest fisheries to the brink of collapse.

"Yet each year fishing fleets dump 25 billion tons of unwanted fish, equal to almost a third of the world's catch".

Minister Iyambo also cautioned about the issue of by-catch and discards in his speech in Spain.

He said in Namibia the discarding of edible and marketable fish is prohibited.

"Thus all fish caught must be landed, whether they are target species or by-catch species," he said.

A by-catch fee is also payable on all landed by-catch species.

Iyambo said this deterred fishing right holders from targeting species for which they did not have a quota.

According to Roberts fishing fleets seek out new hunting grounds as fish populations crash under pressure.

The new target area is Africa because of its "relatively unexploited stocks".

He said if past experiences were anything to go by, Africa's fish stocks would be gone in less than ten years.

The only way to stop it from happening is if Africa acts to protect fish stocks effectively.

Iyambo emphasised the importance of Namibia's fish resource, saying it represented 25 per cent of the country's total exports in value terms.

In 2002 more than 90 per cent of the 625 000 tonnes landed was exported, generating U$330 million.

According to the Minister fish is the single most important export food commodity for developing countries in value terms, ahead of coffee, bananas and other agricultural commodities.

He emphasised the importance of market access, saying a 50 per cent reduction in protectionist measures would boost developing country incomes by about U$150 billion per year.

"Increasing trade is the key to Africa's future prosperity," he said.

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