In Senegal, a new offshore gas terminal, located in the Atlantic Ocean about ten kilometres off Saint-Louis, is beginning to upset fishermen who are lamenting the loss of an area rich in fish.
A new danger may be looming on the horizon. At least, that’s what Senegalese fishermen fear. The new offshore gas terminal visible through the morning mist cloaking the Atlantic Ocean, where Senegal meets Mauritania, is the threat.
The launch of gas production is expected to start next year. As it draws closer the Secretary-General of the fishing union braces for the worst; meaning the end of any fishing activity in the area.
“Cohabitation is impossible. Once gas extraction begins, it will mean death for Saint-Louis’s fishing sector’, Moustapha Dieng predicts.
“Saint-Louis is the capital of fishing, if you take into account the number of boats in Saint-Louis, the types of fishing found in Saint-Louis, they exist nowhere else”.
“However, the fishing area is very small, it is practically stuck between the mouth of the river and the border with Mauritania where there are coastguards who’ve already killed 19 fishermen because they forbid access to their waters”, Dieng laments.
Lately, seafarers have seen their catch dwindle. The authorities stepped up their control over the offshore platform and a security perimeter has been set up to the great displeasure of fishermen who say the area is precisely where most fish is found.
The gas project has also drawn criticism from environmental groups.
“No one can deny that resource exploitation has and will continue to have impacts on our environment”, Pape Fara Diallo analyses.
“There will also be social impacts and when you see the communities that live next to where the resources will be exploited, especially here in Nguet Ndar (ed: fishing village of Saint-Louis) “, the chair of the National Publish What You Pay Coalition adds.
“We feel people are concerned, we see the discrepancy between the billions that we are told will come from the extraction of offshore gas and the poverty that you see around you.”