Fishing professionals and environmental defenders welcomed, on Tuesday May 7, the publication by the Ministry of Fisheries, the day before, of a list of boats authorized to fish in Senegal’s waters. “This is a big step for transparency in the management of fishery resources,” Aliou Ba, head of the “Ocean” campaign for Greenpeace Africa, told AFP. Fishing directly or indirectly supports around 600,000 Senegalese people, for a population of around 18 million inhabitants, according to the UN.
NGOs have been calling for the publication of such a list for years, while Senegalese fishing suffers from overexploitation of resources. The licenses granted to industrial shipowners, particularly European and Chinese, are an old and constant grievance. Senegal’s new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, has promised to restore the country’s sovereignty and reassess fishing agreements.
The list published Monday lists 132 industrial vessels flying the Senegalese flag, 19 foreign ones and more than 17,400 artisanal canoes. But various players in the sector denounce the fact that many industrial boats registered as Senegalese are in fact in the hands of foreigners who use nominees. “We look forward to the publication of this list. Now, we must go further by carrying out an independent audit of the Senegalese fleet, Babacar Sarr, secretary general of the National Interprofessional Council for Artisanal Fishing, pleaded with AFP.
Most of Senegal’s approximately 50,000 fishermen work on narrow traditional canoes and have faced competition in recent decades from foreign factory boats, with their vast nets and automated equipment. The authorities are publishing this list while the protocol in force since 2019 between the European Union and Senegal expires in November and must give rise to a prior evaluation by the Europeans before the opening of new negotiations.