Senegal – Fishers, Environmentalists And Experts Blame Government for Issuing Licenses

FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)

Publisher

21 April 2011

Senegalese small-scale and industrial fishers are accusing the government of “selling off” Senegal’s fishery resources by allowing foreign trawlers to fish small pelagics in Senegalese waters, despite the preoccupying state of the resources, and the impacts on the local sector. The Senegalese Association of Fishing Companies and Ship Owners (GAIPES) is demanding that the Minister of Maritime Economy withdraw 22 licences allegedly granted to Russian, Belizean, Mauritian, Ukrainian and Comorian trawlers. The secretary-general of the National Collective of Small-scale Fishers (CNPS), said the group will take direct action. “If the government doesn’t suspend these licences, we will go and find the trawlers and fight it out with them. We are going to chase them out of our waters at whatever price,” he threatened. For the president of artisanal fish traders, it is not logical for Senegal to grant fishing licenses to foreign trawlers for fishing small pelagics, when Senegal is, at the same time, asking for licences to Mauritania for its artisanal fishermen to be able to access the same stocks.

A former director of Fisheries analyses the situation and highlights not only the damages on the resources and fishing sector, but also the fact that Senegal is allegedly selling these licences much more cheaply than its neighbour Mauritania, which has set the licensing fee at 180 dollars per GT per year – vessels owners must also pay observers costs and contribute to surveillance costs. A Senegalese sociologist believes that if the government maintains the licenses in question, Senegal’s fisheries will vanish and 600,000 people will lose their livelihood. Senegalese have been protesting fish prices are being pushed up to four or five times their previous price as a result of the foreign trawlers’ fishing activities, and the lack of fish on local market. “There aren’t any more of the larger fish species…. Now, Senegalese people eat only small fish: sardines, jack mackerel, mackerel…” laments a representative of Greenpeace Africa, who has also ask the Government to withdraw these licenses.

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