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To renew or not to renew? African nations reconsider EU fishing deals

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Senegal now faces a decision it’s faced before. In the mid-2000s, small-scale fishers there mobilized in opposition to a fishing agreement with the European Union that allowed in many dozens of EU industrial vessels to target various fish species. Under this pressure, Senegal’s then-president opted not to renew the deal when it expired in 2006. A new administration eventually signed a smaller, narrower EU deal in 2014 that allowed 36 tuna vessels and two trawlers into the country’s waters. That deal, renewed in 2019, is set to expire in November. And expire it may well do. Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Senegal’s new president, was elected in March on a platform that included proposing to suspend the deal. It’s not yet clear whether he will follow through, but his rhetoric reflects shifting arrangements in African fisheries, where the EU no longer dominates as it once did. Since 1979, when it signed a bilateral fisheries deal with Senegal, the European bloc has made deals with developing countries, mainly in Africa. Under these deals, now called Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs), European fishing companies gain access to resource-filled foreign waters, while the host countries get cash. Over the last two to three decades, European catches in Africa have declined and SFPAs have contracted somewhat in scale, with fewer big “mixed” deals for multiple species, thanks to depleting stocks and local resistance, and a narrowing of focus onto tuna. Experts see this as a possible win for local control of precious marine resources, as the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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