Senegal fisherman fight for survival

A new offshore gas platform has been built in the Atlantic ocean close to where Senegal meets Mauritania. It's been hailed as a new economic beginning for Africa but at the same time condemned as a new source of pollution.

For the fishermen who have long exercised their profession along this coast, the gas plant is a disaster.

Moustapha Dieng is the Secretary General of a fisherman's union.

Moustapha Dieng: "There is a natural reef over there. This natural reef is a very hard and very old rock. They chose to put the gas platform over there so that it would be well supported. But this rock is the habitat of all the fish, many species of fish, and practically, there are more than 3,000 pirogues, the small canoes that you see, which made their living from this area."

With the world facing a global energy crisis, European leaders are likely to grant Senegal's requests to commence mining their fossil fuel. Sophie Gladima is Senegal's Energy and Oil minister. She believes that mining these hydrocarbons will bring greater public access to electricity and encourage industrialisation. However, for Pape Fara Diallo, the promised wealth from mining these fossil fuels is in stark contrast to the reality of the fishermen.

Pape Fara Diallo: "We feel the concerns. We see the contrast between the billions that we are told will come from the extraction of offshore gas and the poverty that you see around you."

There's already an exclusion zone around the plant, an area which fishermen say harbours the most fish, and they can't venture further north into Mauritianian waters, where they have come under attack from coastguards. Their traditional way of life is under threat but is there a way they could both thrive? Dieng of the Fisherman's Union believes not.

Moustapha Dieng: "Cohabitation is not possible. If you're extracting the gas, you are killing the fishing in Saint-Louis. Because Saint-Louis is the capital of fishing, the number of boats that there are in Saint-Louis, the types of fishing that there are in Saint-Louis, they exist nowhere else."

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