When fishers on the west coast of Madagascar arrive home after a day at sea, children often poke their heads into the pirogues to see what’s inside. People here say that it’s not what it used to be: their catch is declining. Rightly or not, they blame industrial shrimp trawlers for the decline. The trawlers drag their nets along the seabed and take in much more than just shrimp. They work near the shore, right by the fishers’ towns and villages.
This proximity makes the competition for shrimp and near-shore fish easy for local people to see and potentially do something about. Mihari, a network of local fishing associations, has called for an exclusive access zone for small-scale fishers along Madagascar’s shores. And when a fleet of six Chinese vessels started trawling off the southwest coast in 2017, local opposition was fierce and eventually led to a government seizure of their equipment earlier this year.
However, the bulk of industrial fishing in Madagascar’s waters takes place far from shore. It’s conducted by foreign fishing vessels governed by international agreements that critics say lack transparency and are stacked against Madagascar’s interests. With the vessels out of sight and the deals shrouded in secrecy, this form of fishing is nearly invisible to local eyes. Yet conservationists argue that it, too, is depleting the country’s fish stocks and marine ecosystems.
This past tuna season, longliners from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea were very active. Hundreds of Chinese vessels could soon join the fray if a controversial $2.7 billion fishing agreement signed with a Beijing-based company a year ago comes to fruition. And until the end of last year, nearly 100 European vessels have been plying Madagascar’s offshore waters as well. Late last month, representatives from the European Union and Madagascar met in Nosy Be, an island just off the coast of mainland Madagascar, to try to come to terms on a new fisheries agreement. They were not able to do so, a representative from the fisheries ministry told Mongabay, even though this was the third round of negotiations over the last year.
As the EU negotiations drag on and uncertainty lingers over the enormous Chinese deal, Madagascar’s fisheries sector remains in flux, with much at stake for the marine ecosystems that small-scale fishers rely on.
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