cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54715304
One woman, Marie Pierre [Sierra Leone's Sherbo Island in West Africa], is picking sardines from among the discarded jelly fish. She says that international trawlers are illegally entering the coastal waters in ever larger numbers, despite there being an official exclusion zone to keep them out.
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West Africa remains the global epicentre for illegal fishing. An estimated 40% of the world's unlicensed catch can be traced to its waters, according to a 2024 global report.
The study estimated that this costs West African nations a combined $10bn in lost revenues, and risks the food security of millions of people. Commentators say that the situation has not improved in the subsequent two years.
Thomas Turay, president of Sierra Leone's Fishermen's Union, says that the average catches for his members are down some 40% in recent years. And he's in no doubt where the blame lies.
"The illegal fishing is too much," he says. "The sea belongs to us, but for the foreign trawlers, they come at night and violate the seven-mile exclusion zone, they come right into the shore here."
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So, what are nationalities of the international ships off the coast of Sierra Leone?
Steve Trent, CEO and co-founder of global campaign group Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), says the vast majority are from China.
"In the past, we've seen South Korean vessels there, we've seen Taiwanese, we see European vessels there doing bad things. But now when you look across that region, it is overwhelmingly Chinese".
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Trent from the EJF says the Chinese government is adopting a head-in-the-sand approach.
"It's simply not credible for them to carry on in this way. China, to date, still is not doing nearly enough to control its fleet. In fact, I would say they're enabling it, through subsidies, through a lack of oversight and control."
The solution, Trent says, needs to come from better tracking of commercial vessels, and increased international pressure on Beijing, including from consumers themselves. The fish taken from west Africa's rich coastal waters is being sold for consumption around the world, he points out.
"You can choose, do you want to take a product that's been fished illegally, probably unsustainably, stolen from a poor third-party nation, or do you want a product that you actually enjoy eating?"
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