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Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo – With the rise of industrial fishing on the Congo coast, artisanal fishing crews have increasingly focused on making a living from shark fishing in recent years.
Crews fishing for sharks in canoes have been in the area since the 1980s, but the phenomenon has grown steadily over the past two decades, and activists have warned that the practice is becoming unsustainable.
Entrepreneurs say the rise of specialized shark fishing has been driven by several factors.
The construction of offshore oil infrastructure has reduced the fishing grounds for artisanal crews. The advent of industrial fishing trawlers has led to increased competition from fish. And the constant demand for shark fins in some parts of Asia could benefit shark fishing.
Artisanal shark-fishermen go far out to sea, throw nets into the sea before sunset, and at night attract sharks with bait and blood.
On most days, hundreds of sharks are dumped on Songolo beach in the Pointe-Noire fishing district, where they are sold. There are many hammerhead, bumblebee, silk and macaw sharks, all endangered species.
Jean-Michel Dziengue, a Congolese environmental activist for the NGO Bouée Couronne, said a large proportion of the sharks caught are small or young.
“This trend affects all fish resources. In the markets, the fish are getting smaller and smaller. It’s a sign that people are fishing in the paddocks, ”he said.
According to a 2017 survey by traffic NGOs, 95 percent (1,766,589 kg) of sharks caught in the Republic of the Congo came from artisanal fishermen’s canoes, accounting for a third of their annual catch.
Dozens of different shark species are caught in the country, including the II Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) II.
The increase in the number of canoes engaged solely in Congolese shark fishing has been mainly due to the rise in industrial fishing, according to Dziengue.
“First, fishing grounds were reduced by two-thirds as a result of offshore oil exploitation. Then, foreign industrial vessels grew, especially since 2005, when they went from 24 to 70 in a few years, and they also started fishing indefinitely in their young areas. Artisanal fishermen were gradually thrown aside, ”he said.
According to traffic, in a maritime area where a maximum of 30 licenses are required for industrial vessels, in 2018 there were 110 vessels. That number has dropped to about 80 vessels, according to Congolese authorities.
Dziengue said authorities do not have the resources to enforce the law to prevent overfishing of industrial trawlers. “Authorities have only one patrol boat for the entire coast,” he added.
According to the latter examine Published by Current Biology, one-third of the world’s shark and ray species are endangered as a result of overfishing, and the number of shark and ray species undergoing a “global extinction crisis” has doubled in a decade.
Senegalese shark biologist Mika Samba Diop told Al Jazeera that sharks began to disappear from the African seas that were once common.
“Sharks are‘ gendarmes ’in the balance of marine ecosystems, they live long but have poor fertility. If fishing is intensive, there is a lot of damage, ”he said.
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