Chinese Fish Meal Ops Stripping W. African Oceans; 1 Factory's Ouput - 40% Of Gambia's Annual Catch
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Greenpeace Africa warned [pdf] the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) last May that the Gambia was particularly vulnerable to food insecurity as a result of fishmeal production, as fish contributes at least half of the country’s total animal protein intake. The NGO, from its office in Dakar, Senegal, is campaigning against fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO) production, which its previous investigations have found is leading to overexploitation of small pelagic fish in the region. Its OHCHR briefing said 40 FMFO factories were operating in Mauritania, Senegal and the Gambia as of March 2019.
Greenpeace estimates that 4 to 5 kilograms (8.8 to 11 pounds) of fresh fish go into making 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of fishmeal and fish oil. “Most of these stocks are shared and migrate from Morocco to Guinea, so overfishing in one country has direct implications for fishermen in other countries,” its briefing notes. A separate investigation into the FMFO supply chain in 2019 by Dutch NGO Changing Markets Foundation revealed that most of the fishmeal produced in this region is shipped to China for use in the animal feed and aquaculture markets. It found that the annual production from just one factory in the Gambia represented 40% of Gambia’s entire reported fish catch for a given year.
Unsustainable levels of fishing not only affect the tens of thousands of artisanal fishers in the Gambia, whose population totals 2.3 million, but also those employed smoking and drying fish, who are predominantly women. Fishing communities are also battling incursions by industrial trawlers into a marine conservation zone along the coast that is reserved for artisanal fishers. Saine told Mongabay that although it’s difficult to determine who the trawlers work for, most illegally caught bonga and sardinella are sold to fishmeal plants.
Poaching in the restricted zone usually occurs at night, he said. “At around 9 p.m. you see the trawlers coming in. Artisanal fishers’ nets are damaged; usually the fishermen lose their nets and there is no compensation,” Saine said. Fishers have reported attacks by the trawler crews. Last year, fisher Musa Jammeh told China Dialogue that he and his crew were sprayed with scalding water after he approached a vessel that had cut his nets and tried to take down its registration numbers so he could make a compensation case.
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https://news.mongabay.com/2021/04/a-fatal-stabbing-sends-a-gambian-fishing-village-into-turmoil-over-fishmeal/