Let me tell you a story about stolen fish. My name is Lamin Jassey. I am a trained teacher, community leader, coastal and marine environment activist. I am a native of Gunjur, the biggest fishing village in the Gambia, West Africa. There are an estimated 25,000 inhabitants. Most of the people here are connected to fishing in some way.
In 2016, a fish meal factory started operations at Gunjur fish landing site. We thought it will bring improvements to our life. After just one year, we began to realize a dramatic change in our fish supply. There were fewer and fewer fish. As an environmental activist, I started to investigate. It quickly became clear that because of these fish meal factories, we are experiencing an unusual shortage of fish. I also came to understand that the fish meal factory was accepted by our village leadership because of the host of viable economic promises they made, such as providing 600 good jobs, constructing the main road that links the village to the fish landing site and building a fish market for the community. All of these promises are not fulfilled up to this very day, and this clearly tells us that this fish meal factory is not to be trusted and most of their information is false.
I also came to know that the main raw material for this factory are fresh, small pelagic fish. Most people in the Gambia depend on the same small pelagic fish as their main protein intake and source of livelihood. This is the cheapest fish that every family can afford daily and is the foundation of our local economy. The factory finances the majority of fishermen, and their catches go straight to the factory. So women have only leftover fish to process and sell.
Women started struggling and even losing their livelihood and jobs in fish processing. Young people also started to lose hope because most of the youth depend on tourism. The unbearable smell from the factory killed tourism in the area. Most of the youth got onto the street. Crime rate accelerated. Poverty creeps [in on a] once thriving community, and drug and substance abuse is increasing. Youth search for new opportunities. Hundreds, if not thousands, of youth perished in the Atlantic Ocean trying to reach Europe, and there are thousands of youth whose whereabouts are still unknown and their families are still mourning for their loved ones.
In 2018, we came to realize that the fish meal factory at Gunjur fish landing site is disposing of their industrial waste into the ocean. At the very area where boats are landing. This time around, I engaged the management of the factory. I gave them an ultimatum of one week to remove their waste pipes, or we will organize people to remove it for them. When they failed to remove their waste pipe, after one week we went on as promised to remove the waste pipe with hundreds of people. After one week, five other people and myself were arrested and detained at the police station. We had to go to court for six months, but in the end we were all acquitted and discharged.
After this one trial, I continued to educate additional fishermen, women processors, young people about the impact of fish meal factories, and I also have been engaging government officials to revisit the decision of the government and protect the present and future of this country.
However, the government recently decided to sign a six-year fishing agreement with European Union, which allows bigger fishing vessels from the EU and China to fish in our waters. As a result, fish become more scarce and expensive. People's way of eating had to change direction to an imported chicken from Europe, which has become cheaper than local fish. This has led to health problems and with Gambia's fragile health care system, our source of animal protein intake being compromised by fishing vessels and fish meal factories. The situation became worse and unbearable.
In recent years, most of the fishermen in the region began to catch juvenile fish that were not fit for human consumption. But it all went straight into the factory. I asked the fishery staff responsible for enforcement of fisheries regulations which prohibit catching juvenile fish, but to no avail. Instead of feeding us locally, all those fish are turned into fish meal. Then that fish meal goes out of the country, mostly to China, Europe and South America, to salmon farms and other aquaculture farms. The good news is that our organization is working with a few international organizations to build the capacity of women processors, artisanal fishermen to understand what is at stake and collect data at Gunjur, Kartong and Sanyang fish landing sites to inform decision makers and shape the future of this country.
It is my hope to bring fish back to these waters, and not just for the Gambia. The fish belongs to the whole region. We need to bring the Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania and others together to fight and protect our water and our fish. I can't do it alone. We can't do it alone.
Thank you very much.
