US Edition'Plundered': Senegal fishers feel sting of illegal, industrial vessels
Illegal fishing and industrial trawling reduce fish stocks by 57%, forcing over 82,000 Senegalese fishers and coastal workers to face livelihood challenges.
- Industrial and illegal fishing have driven a sharp decline in Senegal's fish stocks, threatening 82,000 workers' livelihoods. A 2025 Environmental Justice Foundation report suggests 57 percent of exploited fish populations are in a state of collapse.
- Foreign industrial ships flagged to Spain and China drive the decline. Bassirou Diarra of the Environmental Justice Foundation cited "fishing in prohibited areas, nets that do not comply with regulations, MPA rules that are not respected, and the abusive granting of licences."
- Ibrahima Mar, a 55-year-old fisherman in the Dakar suburb of Rufisque, says fish have been "increasingly plundered." His livelihood vanished and he lost two sons to the sea, reflecting desperation felt across coastal communities.
- Coastal communities are turning to the Atlantic migration route as livelihoods collapse. Mamadou Diouf Sene of the Fishing Wharf Revenue Commission noted, "What a pirogue used to catch in two months, now that same pirogue can fish for six or seven months to catch the same amount, which is a problem."
- Fishermen like Mar recently trained on new tracking tools to combat illegal activity. Sophie Cooke, a fishing vessel analyst with Greenpeace, said, "We used to call the high seas like the Wild West because there was no way to see what was happening out there.
16 Articles
16 Articles
Senegal fishermen bear the cost of industrial and illegal fishing
In the port town of Rufisque, fishermen who have worked in these waters for decades say industrial and illegal fleets have stripped the sea bare. With no catch and no income, young men are now making a desperate choice: to leave.
ABC FOX Montana
'Plundered': Senegal fishers feel sting of illegal, industrial vessels
Ibrahima Mar first lost his livelihood then lost his son when the fish off Senegal's coast began to disappear, rupturing a way of life that had sustained his family for generations.
Rufisque (Senegal), 24 March 2026 (AFP) – When fish began to disappear from Senegal's coasts, Ibrahima Mar first lost her means of subsistence, then her own son, and with them, a whole way of life that had kept her family alive for generations. Industrial and illegal fishing contributed, among other things, to [...] Read more Senegalese fishermen overwhelmed by the "looting" of their resources appeared first on MARINE & OCÉANS.
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