A silent battle is raging in Cameroon’s coastal waters. On one side are local fishermen and on the other, Chinese in trawlers; defiant.
By Azore Opio
Cameroon’s stocks of sea fish have been rich pickings for unscrupulous Chinese fishermen. The Chinese and their trawlers have disappeared, so far as actual sight of them is concerned, following grumblings from local fishermen and occasional feeble media offensives but they are well known to be in the sea. This has left artisanal fishermen who fish along the Tiko, Mabeta, Limbe, Batoke and Idenau coastal axis deeply worried about vanishing fish populations and dwindling incomes due to overfishing carried out by the Chinese.
Reports say the Chinese had been fishing illegally in Cameroon waters for about 20 years. In spite of a ban on vicious fishing by the Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries, Dr. Aboubakari Sarki, on April 11, 2008, the Chinese are still hauling in hundreds of tons of Cameroon’s fish, which they trade off to foreign buyers on the high seas.
Apparently under the influence of powerful hands, they are said to have acquired a licence in under a month immediately after the ministerial veto.
The furtive fishing by the Chinese fishermen had been difficult to uncover and hard to trace until The Green Vision caught up with some local fishermen, fish mongers and government officials.
The fishermen seem helpless.
“The catch has fallen sharply since the Chinese arrived…they are still here using their trawlers, catching everything in the sea – they sweep all the fish; Mololo, Tilapia, Molet, Ginda… including our nets,” said Francis Ogbonna, a Nigerian doing fishing in the creeks of Tiko.
He said the Chinese fishermen can be mischievous.
“Sometimes they dump the fingerlings and other fish that they have rejected into the sea,” said Ogbonna.
Dead fish is known to decompose and generate intolerable amounts of carbon dioxide that can drive fish away.
More than five years ago, fishermen in Limbe and the West Coast began to feel the influx of new fishermen of Chinese stock trawling in the creeks of Kange, Bimbia, Binimboye, Mboko, Mbomo, Ijawmabeta and Mondolissele. The fishing communities have since seen their waters depleted of fish in a way that has had dismaying reactions and devastating economic impact.
“Since November last year, I haven’t been able to trade well in fish. I used to buy fish for 100.000 or 200.000 francs cfa, but now I can’t even buy fish for up to 50.000 francs cfa,” Olivia Tabit, a fishmonger in Tiko, said.
Laxity and corruption seem to have allowed an unprecedented plundering of Cameroon’s coastal waters by Chinese fishermen. While the local fishermen use nets graded as 0.28 and 0.40, the Chinese use ungraded nets which tend to rake even the smallest fishes, said an official.
It is acute when the Chinese set out to fish in their trawlers.
“The Chinese fishermen also use shrimp trawlers to catch shrimps if they are not harpooning Kuta. They trawl at night even in the rain; their better equipped boats give them an edge over the open canoes of the local fishermen,” a Limbe council official said, “and fish is now very expensive in Limbe.”
“The fish we used to buy for 1000 francs cfa, now costs something like 3.500 francs cfa,” said a woman whom The Green Vision met haggling with a fresh fishmonger.
Curiously enough, the Chinese fishermen who evidently have a large appetite for mature fish don’t seem to have a heart for young fish as they actually trawl in Bimbia where fish is known to spawn.
It is not for nothing then that fishermen along the coast are finding it difficult to bear the presence of the Chinese trawlers in the sea.
“The Chinese are still fishing in the east coast. During the day, they use one boat only, but as soon as it is dark, they turn off their lights and use two boats to do twin trawling. These trawlers often destroy our nets and we are helpless,” Lobe Viom, a young fisherman told The Green Vision at Down Beach Limbe.
“I used to make up to 25.000 francs cfa on a good day, but since the Chinese trawlers came, I can hardly go home with 10.000 francs cfa. Maybe if the Chinese go, I’ll be able to make more money,” Elvis Itoe, another young fisherman, from Batoke, said.
Most people’s attitude to the Chinese overfishing in Cameroon waters seem to be fixed at one extreme. It comes close to ridicule when we learn that the Fisheries authorities are powerless to go to the high sea to call the Chinese to order.
“The Chinese do twin trawling at night; they destroy our nets and there is nothing we can do about it. If you complain, you can get shot by soldiers,” Thomas Adogoni, a Beninese who has been fishing in Limbe for over twenty years, said.
Last year, local fishermen in Mabeta were so vexed to the gills that they confronted their Chinese counterparts over damaged nets. The Mabeta fishermen reportedly damaged some trawling nets belonging to the Chinese.
The Chinese fishermen have so tilted the balance of the fish trade that they have become the suppliers of rejected fish to Cameroonian fishmongers who have to follow them as far as Douala to buy rejected fingerlings to re-sell in Limbe.
“I have just come back from Douala to buy these fingerlings from the Chinese in Douala, and it is still expensive,” said a middle-aged woman at Down Beach Limbe.
Whether it was open door policy or simply a sign of corruption that the Chinese fishermen found a visa to plunder Cameroon’s fish with impunity, officials The Green Vision interviewed couldn’t say.
All they know is that a concession was signed in Yaounde and the Chinese cast their nets.
Whereas the Chinese fishermen have been faulted for the depletion of Cameroon’s sea fish, the local fishermen, a bulk whom are foreigners – Togolese, Beninese, Nigerians and Ghanaians – bear a fair share of the blame.
“Some crooked fishermen use poison such as gamalin to kill fish or sometimes they use dynamite,” said a resident of Bakassi Peninsula.
The practice is known to be rampant in Tiko creeks, said a fisherman in Tiko.
In the face of dwindling sea fish stocks, Cameroonians have submitted themselves to imported frozen fish such as mackerel, sole, tuna, tilapia, bar, etc. And government is said to spend as much as FCFA 150 billion annually to import fish annually – six times the annual budget of the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industry (FCFA 26 billion for 2012).
