CASTING A WIDE NET
Once known for abundant fisheries, Senegal’s waters are becoming overexploited, leading to an exodus of fishermen.
Once known for their abundant fisheries, Senegal’s waters are rapidly becoming overexploited, leading to an exodus of fishermen to European ports. Photographer Guillaume Collanges and reporter Sébastien DaycardHeid set out to meet the men who’ve left their homeland in search of fish
‘Senegalese fishermen are competent guys. And they don’t especially have a family life ashore’
The world is full of stories of fishermen, those who take to the open sea to reach waters filled with fish. The small coastal nation of Senegal in West Africa is home to many such stories and many such men. And yet, despite the presence of once plentiful waters, Senegalese fishermen are spreading much farther afield. For the past ten years, they’ve been criss-crossing the North Atlantic, embarking from Vigo or A Coruña in Spain, or the French ports of Brittany and Normandy. Why? Because the waters of their homeland have been overfished.
It’s three o’clock in the morning and the Belladone is sailing far out from Lorient, Brittany, its home port. Cigarette in hand, the captain, Renaud Yhuel, is busy on deck with his two sailors, Fabrice and Souleymane, who are extracting fish from the nets, following the rhythm of the mechanical reel.
‘It’s getting harder and harder to find competent sailors, who are there in the morning at 2.30am from Monday to Saturday,’ Renaud grumbles as he works.
‘It’s a job that doesn’t attract many people. Here, everyone has the same salary and we don’t calculate our hours. There are people in the schools, but then there’s nobody on the quay! We need to go to sea to earn a living. When we can’t find French labour, we take in foreigners – Senegalese or Mahorese – as in many other professions.’
This is how Souleymane arrived on the boat. A discreet sailor, he had already worked in Spain fishing for sardines and anchovies, and he had the right papers. When he came to ask for work on the quay three years ago, Renaud hired him without hesitation. ‘Senegalese fishermen are competent guys who learn their trade very quickly,’ he says. ‘And they don’t especially have a family life ashore – they’re not interested in going home every day.’
For Souleymane, the boat is a place of hard work, but also a certain equality. ‘On board, there is no difference between men, as long as you have the heart for the work,’ he says. ‘There are people who believe we work because we’re poor. But we work to be able to hold our heads high. And with what I earn here, I live well and help my family back home. I left Senegal for a discovery; I came for an adventure and sooner or later I will return.’
Meanwhile, Bara Dieng hauls heavy, fish-laden nets on a boat owned by Scapêche – a French company which owns the country’s largest fleet for fresh fish, its boats equipped with the latest sonar equipment. It’s very different from the small pirogues on which he used to sail. ‘I started fishing at the age of 12,’ says Bara, who is now in his 40s. ‘I learned to catch the fish just looking at the stars at night.’
Today, he shares a flat with his uncle Adama and his cousin Omar, who are also fishermen. ‘France has
become my second country, the one where I work, the one where I came to look for a better life and try to improve the lot of my people,’ he says. ‘In Senegal, I couldn’t make a living from my fishing. So I took a pirogue in Mauritania to reach the Canary Islands with Omar, then I worked in Spanish fishing and now in Morbihan [a department in Brittany].’
In total, 500 Senegalese fishermen work from the ports in Brittany. They often go out to sea for two to three weeks at a time in large trawlers that sail along the Irish or Scottish coasts.
Because of this existence, almost entirely centred on work, the Senegalese form a ‘working-class’ society of invisibles in Lorient. To meet them, one must visit the Orient, a small grocery shop in the Rue de Verdun that’s full of bright colours and African products.
‘France has become my second country. I came to look for a better life and try to improve the lot of my people’
FIERCE COMPETITION
Most of the Senegalese fishermen now settled in Lorient come from Joal-Fadiouth, a town about two hours’ drive south of the capital, Dakar. After a year’s absence, Omar Kane, Bara’s cousin, returns home. ‘The Senegalese are wrestlers and adventurers,’ he says proudly. ‘They can be found in all the neighbouring countries and in the ports, in Spain, in France, even in Italy.’
At Omar’s house, everyone is busy preparing the thieboudienne, a dish made from rice and fish that feeds the whole family every lunchtime. Today, the meal has a special significance as Omar is reunited with his wife and son, who is only a few months old.
It’s now 12 years since Omar left home, passing through Mauritania and then the Canary Islands just like his cousin. Another brother has also left Senegal.
‘At the port in Senegal, all the conversations revolve around the increasingly expensive equipment and the dwindling fish,’ he says. ‘Many would like to emigrate; they see an uncertain future in this trade.’
Around 50,000 people live in Joal-Fadiouth and the surrounding countryside. Most depend on fish for their survival. A few years ago, it was still unthinkable that a fisherman could come back empty-handed. The upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water off the coast of Senegal provided an abundant marine bounty. But since 2006, overexploitation has seen catches dwindle. At the port, this situation is of serious concern to wholesalers such as Diakhate. ‘These people you see, they come from all over Senegal,’ he says. ‘We also have Burkinabés, Guineans, Malians. They go fishing, they spend the night, they spend the day, they come back, they don’t earn anything. Right now, we have a dead sea, dare we say it. Because we have been fishing anarchically for years. Everybody knows what’s wrong and we’re all here watching without saying anything.’ Abdou Karim Sall, general secretary of the Association for the Promotion of Responsible Fisheries in Senegal, is determined to lay bare what’s happening. A former fisherman himself, he now campaigns on behalf of his colleagues for a sustainable future for the fishery. He also leads the management committee for Joal-Fadiouth’s marine protected area (MPA). Founded in 2004, the MPA stretches over 147 square kilometres as an eight-kilometre-wide marine strip that also includes sandy beaches, mangroves and an area of savannah. But even this legally protected area isn’t entirely safe. Abdou spends much of his day lifting nets placed in the MPA. ‘As I speak to you, 21,000 pirogues are fishing on 718 kilometres of coastline using devastating techniques: static or rotating nets, fishing with longlines, harpoons or explosives and monofilament,’ he says. ‘All species are overexploited.’ Offshore, there’s also fierce competition from industrial fishing fleets. In the port of Dakar, we see a dozen Chinese trawlers sailing under the Senegalese flag, a practice that exempts them from regulations regarding observers and quotas. Whether Asian or European, these trawlers encroach on artisanal fishing zones and regularly under report their tonnage or the quantity of fish caught.
Fishmeal factories have also been established here to meet the needs of aquaculture in Asia. The factories were only supposed to recycle waste materials from the fishery to make the fishmeal. In recent years, however, they’ve also been using fresh fish, such as the sardinella caught by local fishermen and used for food.
‘Fishers know that selling to a plant is more beneficial for them, so what do they do? They’ll even go fishing for juvenile fish,’ explains Gaoussou Guèye, president of the African Confederation of Professional Organizations of Artisanal Fisheries. ‘We tell them: go ahead, fish, whatever the production, whatever the quantity, the factory can take it.’
In Joal-Fadiouth, the local women are working to transform the fishermen’s latest haul into food. Salted or smoked, the sardinella provide an essential source of protein in the hinterland of Senegal, as well as in nearby Mali and Burkina Faso. However, they struggle to compete with the amounts paid by the large fishmeal factories.
TROUBLED WATERS
Alfang Sarr, a fisherman from Djifer, a small coastal village a little further south, is bitter. The pressure on the fishery is so great that he now has to go to neighbouring countries if he wants to find fish to make a living. ‘In Gambia, we brought back three cases that brought in 20,400 CFA francs (£28),’ he says. ‘To go fishing, you need 50,000 CFA francs of petrol for 100 litres. I haven’t reached the income I need and there are 30 of us in my family.’
‘At the port in Senegal, all the conversations revolve around the expensive equipment and the dwindling fish’
Fishing in neighbouring Mauritania has also become complicated. In January 2018, protests erupted in
Dakar following the shooting of a Senegalese fisherman by the Mauritanian coast guard. Clashes have been common ever since the non-renewal of a fishing agreement between the two countries in 2016.
Near Dakar, the situation is even more critical. In Hann Bay, home to one of the most beautiful beaches in Senegal, young people spend their days sitting on nets, living in anticipation of their departure. ‘The young people are going to leave, same for me. We’re all going to leave because we can’t find any more fish,’ says one man, Yorou Sow. ‘That’s why young people are forced to migrate illegally. Last year, a friend died in Libya, his name was Mahada. Since 2006, more than 2,000 people have left this place – 650 have died and 18 are missing.’
With the waves in their souls, Senegalese fishermen have become ecological refugees, forced to venture all over Europe, from Spain to Italy to France, searching for places where there are still fish left.