On Sherbro Island, off Sierra Leone’s southwestern coast, fishing is more than a trade. It is a communal lifeline. Dozens of villagers often pull together to haul in a single net heavy with snapper, mackerel, and barracuda, sustaining families that have depended on the sea for generations.
But today, those nets are coming up lighter. Much lighter.
Local fishermen say catches have fallen sharply, and many blame a familiar threat: large industrial foreign trawlers operating in waters reserved for small-scale fishers.
Along the coast, that accusation is not abstract. It is tied to empty nets, damaged boats, and livelihoods under pressure.
A coastline under pressure.
Sierra Leone has a seven-mile exclusion zone meant to protect artisanal fishing communities. In theory, it gives local fishers space to work without competition from industrial vessels. In practice, fishermen say the boundary is routinely crossed, often at night and with little consequence.
Their complaints go beyond shrinking fish stocks. Fishermen allege that trawlers deliberately run over nets and cut them loose, leaving local operators with immediate losses and no realistic path to recovery. Replacing a single net can cost about $250, a devastating amount for families living close to subsistence.
Thomas Turay, president of Sierra Leone’s Fishermen’s Union, says artisanal catches have dropped by an estimated 40% in recent years. Farther up the coast near Freetown, fishermen at Tombo harbour describe repeated night-time collisions that damage boats and leave crews with no compensation and little recourse.
A regional crisis.
Sierra Leone’s experience is part of a much larger West African crisis. The region has become one of the world’s biggest hotspots for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. According to environmental advocates, West African waters account for a major share of global IUU fishing, draining roughly $10 billion from regional economies each year.
The cost is not only financial. Illegal fishing weakens food security, deepens poverty, and undermines one of the few reliable income sources for coastal communities. For countries already facing pressure from climate stress and inflation, the damage lands hard.
Who is fishing the waters?
Industrial fleets from Europe, South Korea, and Taiwan have long operated along parts of West Africa’s coast. But campaigners say the dominant presence off Sierra Leone today is Chinese.
Steve Trent, chief executive of the Environmental Justice Foundation, says the overwhelming majority of industrial vessels fishing off Sierra Leone are Chinese.
Union leaders and local fishers also say repeated complaints to the Ministry of Fisheries have produced little visible change, fueling frustration and suspicion that weak enforcement and corruption are protecting violators.
That frustration is not just about the boats themselves. It is about a system that appears unable, or unwilling, to stop them.
Government claims and ground reality.
The Sierra Leonean government says the problem is under control.
Sheku Sei, a director at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, insists illegal fishing is no longer a major issue. He points to new rules requiring automatic transponders on international vessels and routine patrol inspections. He also downplays concerns about transponder-switching, a common tactic in which ships turn off their tracking signals to fish illegally in restricted waters.
But local fishermen say those assurances do not match what they see at sea. The ministry argues that fines should deter violations, yet official records reportedly show no case in which a foreign vessel has actually been penalized for entering the seven-mile exclusion zone over the past decade.
That gap between policy and enforcement is at the heart of the crisis.
Why it matters.
China’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly denied accusations of state-backed illegal fishing, saying it regulates its distant-water fleet. Still, independent analysts point to fuel subsidies and weak oversight as key reasons industrial vessels are able to fish aggressively in foreign waters.
For Sherbro Island’s fishing families, the issue is simpler and more urgent. They want the seven-mile exclusion zone enforced so they can work without watching their livelihoods vanish into the dark.
The problem is no longer just about fish. It is about fairness, sovereignty, and whether coastal communities can survive when the sea they depend on is stolen from them. Source BBC Africa
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