Tag Archives: west africa

Video: How Europe’s plunder of West African waters is affecting local communities

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By Hayley Baker, Greenpeace UK

This week as our crew on the Arctic Sunrise highlights the mass plundering taking place at sea by European super trawlers in West Africa; our team on land in Senegal and Mauritania have met some of the communities who have been affected by this modern day pillage.

They met local fishermen who are forced to go further out to sea in their traditional boats as their local waters have been dramatically overfished by foreign vessels. Some of these trawlers – many from Europe – are literally floating fish factories, capable of catching, processing and freezing 250 tonnes a day. Continue reading →

Arctic Sunrise captures EU trawlers plundering African seas

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Blogpost by Willie Mackenzie.

Activists highlight pirate Russian pelagic fishing trawler

Our ship, the Arctic Sunrise is currently in Mauritanian waters, to highlight the problems of overfishing emptying African seas. Vast factory-style fishing boats are trawling out fish at an alarming rate and decimating local ecosystems and livelihoods in the process.

The campaign team at sea have already encountered a number of these super trawlers, in the seas off Senegal last week.  Boats from as far away as Russia and China fish these waters, but scandalously the EU is also exporting its own overfishing to West Africa. Continue reading →