Fish vs people?
Setting the right balance between a global industry and local communities is proving a challenge in the West African fisheries, as Fiona Nicolson reports.
The volume of fishmeal and fish oil (FMFO) generated by fisheries along the coastlines of West African countries has been growing significantly, according to Greenpeace. A report by the global campaigning network revealed that FMFO exports in Mauritania doubled between 2014-2018. In 2019 Greenpeace recorded some 50 FMFO factories in the region.
This has had mixed results. A 2022 study of the fish-based feed industry in sub-Saharan Africa found that while the industry provides some economic benefits for governments and fish workers, it also presents a threat to livelihoods and the food security of local communities.
Hazel Healy, UK Editor at environmental activist website DeSmog, says: “The problem with FMFO sourced from West Africa is that in this part of the world, the industry is competing directly for the same fresh fish that is widely eaten here, and which provides employment for tens of thousands of women fishworkers.”
Fish in processing plant
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in countries like Norway, fish oil is needed to support the salmon farming industry. According to analysis by campaign group Feedback Global, in 2020, nearly two million tonnes of wild fish were required to produce fish oil for the Norwegian farmed salmon industry.
Feedback Global reports that four big producers supply nearly all the feed used in Norwegian salmon farming, and that all of them obtain fish oil from fishing area FAO 34, located off the coast of West Africa. It also says that the volumes of fish sourced from this area in 2020 could have supplied a year’s worth of food for around 2.5-4 million people in the region.
Feedback’s Blue Empire report on the impact of the Norwegian salmon industry on West Africa, published in January this year, also identified other issues. Amelia Cookson, Industrial Aquaculture Campaigner at Feedback, says: “The industrial scale of the fishmeal industry in West Africa is driving up the price of fish sold across several West African markets. The price of sardinella in Mauritania has risen from €0.25 to €1.5 per kilogram in recent years. This is making fish unaffordable for the local population.”
There is an impact on livelihoods and on health too, observes Cookson: “The decline in fish populations is also being linked to the increase in migration from the region as poor prospects force thousands of people to leave each year.” She adds: “The small fish targeted by the FMFO industry contain key nutrients including iron, zinc and calcium, critical for women’s health in West Africa, where more than half of the female population suffers from anaemia.”
Fishmeal in pellet form
In July, Feedback sent an open letter to the Norwegian government, signed by 39 organisations.
Aliou Ba, Senior Ocean Campaign Manager at Greenpeace Africa, one of the signatories to the letter, says: “The fishmeal industry is a serious threat to food security and the future of fisheries in West Africa. It plunders our marine resources to feed intensive aquaculture in Asia and Europe, when local populations need it for their own food.”
The signatories called on the government in Norway to ban the country’s farmed-salmon producers from sourcing fish oil from West Africa, to halt further growth in the sector and to ensure transparency throughout corporate supply chains. To date, the government has not responded to the letter.
However, the most recent statistics from marine-ingredients organisation IFFO, from 2021, indicate that while some West African countries need their local fish for food, others are less dependent on it. Commenting on Senegalese and Mauritanian diets, Petter Johannessen, IFFO’s Director General, says: “While Senegalese rely on fish for their daily diet, Mauritanians rely more on meat, with little consumption of fish.”
The figures also showed the scale of FMFO production in the region. Johannessen says: “Mauritania and Senegal provide small contributions to the world’s fishmeal and fish-oil production: in 2021, Mauritania provided 1.12% of the world’s FMFO production and Senegal provided 0.22%.”
He also points to measures taken by Mauritania to reduce its contribution: “In 2023, it placed a cap on the amount of pelagic (small fish) catches processed for indirect human consumption. The regulation restricts each factory to processing a maximum of 4,000 metric tons of pelagic catches per year.”
A fishing vessel lifts its trawl tackle off the coast of Africa
Sustainability developments
Actions undertaken to address the sustainability of the FMFO industry in this region have also come under scrutiny recently.
In July, DeSmog published a report in which it states that initiatives to ensure responsible sourcing for the global aquafeed industry “are being undermined by systemic conflicts of interest, endangering efforts to safeguard critical fish stocks in West Africa.”
DeSmog mapped the membership of three major sustainability initiatives set up by global companies in the FMFO industry that are active in West Africa. It said that, according to its findings, none involve any representatives from the West African public, women fish processors or artisanal fishers. It also reported its finding that at least three of the trade groups and companies involved in the initiatives had “a history of lobbying against environmental regulations”.
However, big aquafeed companies such as Norway-based Skretting emphasise that they support environmental improvements, including initiatives such as FIPs (fishery improvement projects), which set out to improve sustainability, practices and management of fisheries to recognised standards.
A spokesperson for Skretting says: “We welcome the attention to West African fisheries and any initiative that aims at increasing transparency and accountability throughout their supply chains.
“We’re supporting the small pelagics FIP in Mauritania and are involved in stakeholder initiatives that have identified West Africa as a focus area to improve the environmental and social impacts of our operations.”
In addition, Skretting reports that it is also taking part in the SeaBOS – West Coast Africa Keystone Project. Its aim is to identify illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and modern-slavery risks within SeaBOS member companies’ operations and across their supply chains, and to take action to mitigate these risks. It will focus on supply chains of small pelagic fish in the coastal waters of Mauritania amongst other areas. The aim is “to create positive, tangible and publicly reported impacts by October 2025”.
IFFO also says that it backs FIPs, for their potential to create positive change. Johannessen comments: “We believe that the FIP model is a powerful platform for dialogue and measurable progress. We call on all companies sourcing fishmeal and oil from Mauritania to join the Mauritania FIP for small pelagics, and to get their suppliers to join. In Senegal, where no FIP is in place, we call on the government, the fishing community and the industry to consider such an initiative.”
However, other organisations disagree. Cookson says that: “Corporate initiatives such as the Mauritanian FIP are deeply flawed and act as a sustainability smokescreen, enabling the further growth of the industry rather than addressing the socioeconomic damage caused by the use of nutritious fish in regions suffering from food scarcity.”
Commenting on the Mauritanian FIP, Healy says: “Local organisations report better transparency, which is welcomed. But seven years after it was set up, the fishery is still not certified, and stocks of the industry’s target fish are still overexploited and at risk of collapse. Yet all the major EU, Norwegian and US fish-feed companies are sourcing from there.”
In the meantime, the competing demands for feed for salmon and food for West African citizens look set to continue.
