The fishermen are urging authorities to implement a ban on big boats in designated fishing zones to safeguard their fishing rights and protect the country’s marine biodiversity.
They argue that big vessels disrupt marine ecosystems and deplete fish stocks crucial for their livelihoods and the health of the nation.
The debate over the presence of large boats in fishing areas continues to escalate, with fishermen determined to secure governmental support for their cause.
Speaking to The Point, Adama Sanneh, a fish retailer at Tanji, who has been in the market for seven years, compared previous years to recent ones, narrating that Tanji used to be a huge source of income for her and other fish mongers due to the excess availability of fish. “However,” she laments, “recent years have been hard for us due to the presence of big boats in Gambian waters, which carry out negative activities in our fishing zones. We rely on fishermen to access fish or make enough catch to sell to us; but these big boats are making it difficult for them to access fish. The only fishermen that manage to catch good fish are those who stay at sea for days.”
Sanneh calls on government to assist them with this challenge.
Muhammed Gaye, a fisherman for 10 years, stressed that the boats are the reason they couldn’t catch good fish. “These big boats use nets that would catch both the big and small fish, and they would get rid of the small ones which they throw away, making it difficult to access good fish,” he said. “Currently we just fish and manage with what we can get, and sell it in order to put food on the table.”
Ash Gaye, another fisherman for 8 years, underscored that they face lots of challenges with the big boats. “Most times these boats sail on our canoes and break them and there is nothing we can do about it,” he said, adding: “Other times they would hit the canoes while there are individuals in them, which leads to loss of lives because the boats are more powerful than the canoes.”
Gaye also alleged that the fishermen of these vessels or boats do not sell the fish they catch to Gambians. “We however take everything we catch back to our people to feed the nation and also for us to make ends meet,” he said.
He urged the government to intervene in the issue to ensure normalcy returns to the fishing sector, where they would be able to make good catch to sell to the nation and at the same time eke out a living.
