Dr Hashali Hamukuaya of has been appointed as the first Executive Secretary of the South East Atlantic Fisheries Organisation, SEAFO with its office at Walvis Bay on 1 March 2005. Dr Hamukuaya has considerable experience in fisheries resources management, fisheries sciences and in regional and international fisheries affairs, having led the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem (BCLME) Programme’s activity centre in Namibia for the past 3 years. The activity centre focused on the trans-boundary management of marine living resources, and Hamukuaya was responsible to coordinate regional projects in Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

Hamukuaya obtained his M.Sc. in Marine Sciences at the University of New York and a doctorate in zoology at the University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Between 1991 and 1998, he worked as a fishery scientist at the National Marine Information and Research Centre in Swakopmund. He was later appointed as deputy director and stationed in Windhoek. During his career, Hamukuaya has served as Namibia’s Commissioner to the International Commission for the Conservation of the Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and was intricately involved in the Benguela Environment Fisheries Interaction and Training Programme (BENEFIT). He was a member of the team that negotiated the SEAFO Convention and the SADC Protocol on Fisheries.