DAKAR: Each day, fishmongers in Congo Republic pile up hundreds of dead sharks on the shore and begin lopping off fins and bartering over hammerheads and other endangered species.
The bustling seaside business could be jeopardizing the marine environment in the Gulf of Guinea, wildlife trade group TRAFFIC warned this week. Artisanal fishermen are harvesting 400-1,000 sharks and rays per day, according to surveys it conducted last year.
The fishermen say they don’t have a choice. A rise in industrial fishing by dozens of mainly Chinese trawlers in Congolese waters is eroding their livelihoods.
“Since the Chinese trawlers arrived, it’s complicated things,” said Alain Pangou, a 54-year-old fisherman. “It’s difficult to live.”
In a short film released alongside the report on Monday, Pangou and his small crew lament bygone days of plentiful fish, as they clear a net of juvenile hammerheads – too young to have had any offspring to replace their numbers.
At the nearby Songolo Beach market, in Pointe-Noire, traders haggle over fins for export to Asia, while the rest of the meat is sold for local consumption.
“The artisanal shark fishers shouldn’t be targeted as the bad boys here, they’re getting squeezed by an unregulated industrial fisheries sector,” said Emma Stokes who heads the regional office of another environmental group, the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Worldwide, shark populations are in trouble due to industrial fishing and the practice of ‘finning’ – or slicing off shark fins for a soup considered a Chinese delicacy. Demand for fins has spurred a global raid on these apex predators.
A global ocean survey published on July 22 in the journal Nature found that sharks were “functionally extinct” at one fifth of 371 coastal reefs monitored since 2015.
In Congo, fishermen say their catches have declined since the Chinese boats began appearing in 2000. Oil platforms set up in the Gulf have also drastically reduced the area open for fishing.
The country’s waters have yet to be surveyed; officials say they need outside financing and expertise.
“We fish them, we know how to do that, but the stock is unknown,” said Fisheries Director Benoit Atsango in the video, which was financed by charitable fund Arcadia.
Overfishing in Congo threatens endangered sharks, report warns
Overfishing in Congo threatens endangered sharks, report warns
- The bustling seaside business could be jeopardizing the marine environment in the Gulf of Guinea
- In Congo, fishermen say their catches have declined since the Chinese boats began appearing in 2000
Britain, Japan agree to deepen defense and security cooperation
- “We set out a clear priority to build an even deeper partnership in the years to come,” Starmer said
- Takaichi said they agreed to hold a meeting of British and Japanese foreign and defense ministers this year
TOKYO: Britain and Japan agreed to strengthen defense and economic ties, visiting Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday, after his bid to forge closer links with China drew warnings from US President Donald Trump.
Starmer noted that Japan and Britain were the leading economies in a trans-Pacific that includes fellow G7 member Canada, as well as other international trade and defense pacts.
“We set out a clear priority to build an even deeper partnership in the years to come,” Starmer said as he stood beside Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after a bilateral meeting in Tokyo.
“That includes working together to strengthen our collective security, across the Euro-Atlantic and in the Indo-Pacific.”
Takaichi said they agreed to hold a meeting of British and Japanese foreign and defense ministers this year.
She said she also wanted to discuss “cooperation toward realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, the Middle East situation and Ukraine situation” at a dinner with Starmer later on Saturday.
Starmer arrived on a one-day Tokyo stop after a four-day visit in China, where he followed in the footsteps of other Western leaders looking to counter an increasingly volatile United States.
Leaders from France, Canada and Finland have all traveled to Beijing in recent weeks, recoiling from Trump’s bid to seize Greenland and tariff threats against NATO allies.
Trump warned on Thursday it was “very dangerous” for its close ally Britain to be dealing with China, although Starmer brushed off those comments.
Tokyo’s ties with Beijing have deteriorated since Takaichi suggested in November that Japan could intervene militarily during a potential attack on Taiwan.
China regards the self-ruled democratic island as its territory.
Starmer met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang on Thursday, with both sides highlighting the need for closer ties.
He also signed a series of agreements there, with Downing Street announcing Beijing had agreed to visa-free travel for British citizens visiting China for under 30 days.
No start date for that arrangement has been given yet.
Takaich said the two leaders agreed during discussions on economic security that a strengthening of supply chains “including important minerals is urgently needed.”
There is concern that Beijing could choke off exports of the rare earths crucial for making everything from electric cars to missiles.
China, the world’s leading producer of such minerals, announced new export controls in October on rare earths and associated technologies.
They have also been a major sticking point in trade negotiations between China and the United States.
Britain, Japan and Italy are also developing a new fighter jet after Tokyo relied for decades on the United States for military hardware.
