artisanal fishermen

Fisherfolk communites around the world celebrate World Fisheries Day today highlighting the importance of sustainable management of fisheries and raising awareness about overfishing and habitat destruction.

Luís comes from a family of fishermen. His great-grandfather started fishing in the tiny village of Cabo de Gata, near Almería, Spain, many years ago. Today, Luís is teaching is son the ropes. He's the first of the fifth generation of fishermen from this family.

Q: What do you do when you run out of fish?

A: go catch someone else’s!

Cheeky perhaps, but that is the gist of what is referred to in European fishy politics circles as ‘The External Dimension’. Although it sounds like something from sci-fi, this is quite simply European fishing boats catching fish in non-European waters. Earlier this year I joined a Greenpeace ship in West Africa to see the scale of this first hand. It’s a pretty big deal, in every sense.

Approximately 1.5 MILLION small-scale fishermen live and work along the coast of West Africa. They live a life directly dependent on the seas on their doorstep. And it's not just them - their families and communities depend on it too, of course. Yet here in the seas off West Africa it's clear to see their interests are being ignored in favour of allowing massive, industrialised, factory fishing vessels to gobble up all the fish. Of course some of this is illicit, but much of it is legitimised plunder, such as the huge PFA vessels down here with EU subsidies and paid-for Fisheries Partnership Agreements.