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Senegal’s fishermen head for Spain as fish stocks dwindle at home

Senegal’s fishermen head for Spain as fish stocks dwindle at home

FISHERMAN Khalifa Ndour says Senegalese President Macky Sall is responsible for the plunge in his country's fish stocks that forced him to risk his life to seek work as a farmhand in northeastern Spain. Back home in Senegal, his wife Mariatou Mbodj misses her husband. She can't find work as a fish processor, and she and Ndour's three children wait anxiously in Bargny, on the coast south of the capital Dakar, for news of his progress in getting legalised in Spain. Ndour, 42, is one of tens of thousands of Africans, many former fishermen, making a perilous journey to Spain…
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Locals pioneer safer fishing alternatives to protect seas off Madagascar

Locals pioneer safer fishing alternatives to protect seas off Madagascar

NICKY MILNE IN a small boat off the coast of Madagascar, Idrissa Tsirvelo struggled with a spanner on his rusted dive cylinder, then put a regulator in his mouth and disappeared under the water, risking death illegally harvesting sea cucumbers from the ocean floor. Deep sea diving for the worm-like marine animals - a delicacy selling for hundreds of dollars in Asia - can lead to death, injury or paralysis, but many young men in the Indian Ocean island say they have no other means of survival. "This work really scares me," said Tsirvelo. "As humans we are not meant…
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Kenya fishermen say they are squeezed by Ethiopian mega-dam

Kenya fishermen say they are squeezed by Ethiopian mega-dam

BAZ RATNER FISHERMEN on the shores of Kenya's Lake Turkana, the world's biggest desert lake, have no doubt about what is to blame for their dwindling fish stocks: a giant hydroelectric dam built by Ethiopia on the River Omo, which feeds the lake. "We are now seeing Nile perch stocks drastically reduce," said fisherman Fitbo Lalukol. He says boats must sail much further out into the lake to get a good catch. Officials at Ethiopia's ministry of water, irrigation and energy did not respond immediately to a Reuters request for comment on the fishermen's claims. Complaints about the Omo dam…
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