The theme for Earth Day 2023 is “Invest in our planet”. This investment can come in many ways: reducing the use of single-use plastics, climate- and environment-related education, and promoting sustainable fisheries, the latter of which is particularly urgent in West Africa.
A June 2022 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warns that in some countries with rising fishmeal production, including the West African nation of Senegal, catches are increasingly being made into cheap fishmeal for export, leaving local people foodless. Supply is at risk.
Young man from fishing family has to give up the sea
Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is located on the Cape Verde peninsula, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Before nightfall, local fishermen head out to the Madeleine Islands, just a few miles off the coast of Dakar, for one of the best squid fishing grounds in the region. After taking a good look at the seabed, fishermen cast anchor to fish with the help of flashlights and cables, with lights sunk a few meters into the water to attract larvae and nocturnal predators such as squid.
It was like a scene from the movie “Life of Pi” – between the sea and the sky, a small boat, with the moon in the sky, and the sea under the boat was shining.
But if the picture is zoomed out, the distant horizon is dotted with more intense white light. Those rays come from large foreign-registered commercial fishing vessels, often found to be fishing with bottom trawling nets that are extremely destructive to marine ecosystems.
West Africa’s fish stocks are being overfished in recent decades, with more than a third of them being exploited through unsustainable methods as global demand for fish products has grown. Taking the West African country of Mauritania as an example, some scholars have calculated that in the 25 years from 1982 to 2007, the benthic biomass in the country’s sea area has dropped by 75%, which means a loss of 20,000 tons of biomass per year.
And in Senegal, mostly small-scale and artisanal fishing and related activities are the main source of livelihood for at least 600,000 people—men go to sea, women smoke or pickle, or sell directly. According to statistics from the World Bank’s West Africa Regional Fisheries Project, Senegal’s fishery sector, which accounts for 3.5% of the country’s GDP, is facing the worst crisis in history. In recent years, some young people from traditional fishing families have had to give up the sea and find jobs on land, or enter European countries through extraordinary means to find new ways to support their families.
Hunger rations being used as animal feed?
West African fisheries have faced many challenges in recent years. On the one hand, the fishing capacity of foreign large-scale fishing vessels is too strong, coupled with the fishing needs of local traditional fisheries, the fishery resources have been over-exploited. On the other hand, due to the insufficient management capacity of the local government, there is a serious IUU fishing problem (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated, that is, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing). In the past few years, fishmeal and fish oil factories have expanded rapidly, and more and more catches are being used to make fishmeal and fish oil for export, posing another threat to the local fishery.
Both fishmeal and fish oil are products made from fish, often used to make animal feed for farmed fish, livestock and pets, and to make nutritional supplements. “Fishmeal” is a powder produced from fish as raw material after cooking, pressing, drying, and crushing. “Fish oil” is the oil obtained by pressing and cooking fish.
In three West African countries, Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia, fishmeal and fish oil production grew from 13,000 tonnes in 2010 to more than 170,000 tonnes in 2019, representing a more than tenfold increase in ten years, according to the United Nations Comtrade database .
Behind the increasing output and booming industry is the increasing demand for fishmeal and fish oil worldwide, and the resulting price increase has also injected interest into the fishmeal and fish oil industry. It is not ethical to use offcuts (whole fish or parts of the fish such as bones, heads and giblets) to produce fishmeal and fish oil, or if the whole fish used comes from fisheries that are caught in a fair and sustainable manner. But the reality is that whole fish that were originally eaten by local people in West Africa are caught and made into fishmeal and fish oil and exported to developed countries as feed. This not only increases the pressure on fishery resources, but also directly affects local food security and national livelihoods.
For example, in Gambia, Mauritania and Senegal, small pelagic species such as bonga, flat sardinella and round sardinella are the main raw materials used in fishmeal production. These fish species are the main source of animal protein, essential micronutrients and fatty acids for millions of people in the region, especially those with low income and low purchasing power, maintaining local food security. In Senegal in particular, fish accounts for 70 percent of people’s animal protein intake.
You can draw a rough picture of fishmeal and fish oil production and trade in your mind: Every year, more than 500,000 tons of small pelagics are caught off the coast of West Africa and sent to fishmeal and fish oil plants onshore, where every 4 Up to 5kg of catch will be processed and converted into 1kg of fishmeal.
But after completing the fishmeal-fish oil transformation and becoming a commodity that can be traded globally, the industry chain becomes difficult to track. Not only because the entire fishmeal and fish oil industry lacks transparency, traceability and supervision, but also because companies in this industry chain are both processors and traders, who combine products from different sources and sell them to different destinations—some into final products. Sales market, some enter the processor before re-export.
The end of the industrial chain is relatively clear. According to the report “Feeding a Monster: How Aquaculture Steals Food from West African Communities” published in 2021 by the Greenpeace and Transformative Markets Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the “2021 Report”), the European Union is the three countries in West Africa, Mauritania, Senegal, and Gambia. The main export markets of China, especially fish oil; the main export markets of fishmeal include the European Union, China, Japan, Vietnam, and Turkey. Among them, Mauritania is the largest importer of the EU, producing more than 110,000 tons of fishmeal each year, 18% of which is exported to the EU, and nearly 35,000 tons of fish oil, of which more than 70% is exported to the EU. Senegal also produces around 5,000 tonnes of fish oil per year, of which more than half (59%) is exported to the EU.
Once in Europe, fish meal may be added to the daily diet of Norwegian salmon and Danish pigs, and fish oil may be made into capsules to provide nutritional supplements for wealthy consumers.
Fishmeal and fish oil factories also put pressure on the local employment environment. As mentioned earlier, in West Africa, the work of handling fish is often a traditional female occupation. Under the competition of factories, the supply of fish consumed by local residents has decreased and the price has increased. They are engaged in smoking, salting and drying fish. Employment opportunities for working women are also declining.
Not only that, according to a report jointly published in 2022 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, WorldFish, the Malaysian fisheries research institution, and the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Gambia, Senegal, Congo, Ghana, etc.) after conducting research and field visits, the research team found that the fishmeal industry also had some negative impacts on the local ecological environment.
In addition to the smog and stench, the wastewater discharged from the factory is also deteriorating the local environment. Vulnerable children and the elderly are particularly affected, with symptoms such as rhinitis, coughing, asthma, diarrhea and nausea. Frontline workers working in poorly equipped factories are also at high risk of these diseases and are often injured.
Taking back the sea, Senegalese fishermen sue fishmeal factory
For the survival and health of the local people, from September 2022, Cayar, Senegal’s largest fishing town, has launched an environmental lawsuit. A local fisherman’s group, the Taxawu Cayar Coalition, backed by local lawyers and legal experts from the international environmental agency Greenpeace, has filed an injunction suit seeking the temporary closure of a fishmeal factory in Cayar.
“Environmental lawsuits like this are rare in Senegal, or even in much of Africa. So, this will be a historic test of our institutions and citizens exercising their rights,” said Maitre Bathily, a lawyer for the coalition.
On September 22, the entrance of the High Court of Thiès in Senegal’s second largest city was particularly lively, with Kayals in bright clothes and various hats gathered. Both parties to the lawsuit are here for the first public hearing. The calm excitement on the faces of the rebel groups can be seen, holding white banners that read “Justice pour Cayar” and other words.
The fishmeal factory in question (Touba Protéine Marine factory) was established by the Spanish company Barna Spain. Prior to this, Barna had given up ownership of the factory amid ongoing protests by the Taxokeya Union and local fishermen and residents. The factory was then bought by local Senegalese.
According to a series of plans by the rebels, the first stage of the lawsuit will call for the temporary closure of the fishmeal factory, after which they will seek to permanently close the fishmeal factory or completely change the way it operates. To win the lawsuit, Kayal’s fishermen and residents organized community events, policy advocacy, and protests against exploitation.
According to reports, the citizens of Kayal submitted a piece of evidence that has been tested by the laboratory, indicating that the content of certain elements in the local drinking water has reached “dangerous levels.” Civic groups also provided a video showing a fishmeal factory truck dumping waste into a lake, one of the local sources of drinking water.
On November 3 last year, a judge rejected the protesters’ request to suspend operations of the Touba fishmeal factory in Kayal, saying it could not be determined whether the fishmeal factory was the source of local water pollution. Fishermen’s groups have since considered whether to appeal the judge’s decision or go forward with a new lawsuit seeking to close the factory permanently.
“We respect the laws of this country and will pursue all possible legal means,” said Alle Sy, a member of the fishermen’s group. “We will never give up because this is a battle that is close to our hearts.”
The rebellion in Kayal is not an isolated incident. Such boycotts have occurred one after another in several major fishmeal and fish oil exporting countries in West Africa: In 2018, the resistance and mobilization of residents in the small town of Abena, Senegal, led to the shutdown of newly-operated foreign-owned factories; In 2021, a foreign-funded processing factory in the small town of Gunjul, Gambia wanted to expand, but was stopped by the Gambia National Environment Agency amidst opposition.
However, the resistance from local residents has not contributed enough to the sustainable development of fisheries. The Greenpeace and Transformative Markets Foundation made a series of recommendations in the 2021 report, including: local governments should phase out the use of whole fish for human consumption in the production of fishmeal and fish oil; foreign companies and end markets should also stop trading in this production West African fishmeal and fish oil; further, West African fishery countries should unite to establish an effective regional management mechanism, especially for the development of common fisheries such as small pelagics, following a precautionary, ecosystem-based approach, Ensure total catch is within safe biological limits.