Plundered Seas
SAINT LOUIS
Along the streets, in the coastal village of Saint Louis, Senegal, groups of young men and women can be heard chanting songs of camaraderie as they knit and pull large fishing nets together. These young men and women are fishers. They sleep, eat, and breathe fish.
In recent years, thousands of locals in Senegal and the neighbouring Gambia have resorted to embarking on perilous journeys to Europe and the Canary Islands in order to secure their livelihoods. These trips often involve crossing the Atlantic in small boats to destinations like Southern Italy and the Canary Islands. Many of these migrants die en route from cold, starvation, and drowning. In many cases, these migrants are local fishermen from Senegal who, owing to the continuing decline of the fishing industry, and the absence of viable alternative means of survival, adopt desperate, and often fatal, alternatives. It is recognised that as an important source of nutrition, fish is not easily substituted, and the decline of the fishing industry has meant for the fishermen a loss of economic and social agency.
Senegal is an example of a trend playing out across the world, in which 90% of fisheries are fully fished or facing collapse, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The crisis has been exacerbated by European and Asian fleets prowling the seas off the coast of West Africa.
"I am still here because I am not courageous. If I were courageous and if I knew that I would get a job in Europe I would join the migration train. All the people who are courageous have gone there because they offer hope. I am not courageous that is why I am here"
Mousa