CFP

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. 

 We’re currently following a stern trawler as it fishes. It’s not the biggest vessel out here, but, like many others it is fishing up and down where the shallow continental shelf meets deeper waters. That there is fish in these waters there is no doubt, and proved by the birds, whales and dolphins we encounter here, as well as the fishing vessels.

I’m out in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere off Mauritania in West Africa, aboard the Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise. We’re here to document and expose the shocking overfishing of Africa’s coastal seas by huge fishing vessels from the EU and elsewhere.