Papa Sady has been fishing in Joal-Fadiouth – a fishing town in Southern Senegal with the country’s biggest fishing harbour – since 1985. When a team from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) visited him in 2024, while mending fishing nets just outside his family home a stone’s throw away from the beach, he shared that “fish is almost over”.

Joal-Fadiouth has a population of over 60,000 and has been defined by its fishing community for many generations. The beaches near the harbour are still lined with fishing canoes painted in bright colours, but the fish market is far from full.

As overfishing and illegal fishing by foreign-owned fleets in Senegalese waters takes its toll on the once abundant fish population, more and more fishers struggle to make ends meet. 

Papa Sady describes how “lots of my fellows, who own boats like me, are facing the same issues. We all are experiencing the same distress. Every time we meet, finding solutions is our only topic. We all talk about how to catch fish, but we still fail to catch them.”

Papa and his peers are hauling empty nets because Senegal’s fish populations are collapsing under the pressure of industrial and artisanal fleets’ overfishing, as well as increasing volumes of fish being exported to other parts of the world.

Worryingly, models suggest that almost 60% of the fish populations exploited in Senegal are in a state of collapse. 

As a result of the decline in fish, Papa shares that “you can not even pay your electricity bill, you cannot pay your water bill, and you cannot have any other means of income than the sea. You put on your fishing clothes and go to sea to take care of these bills.”

As making a livelihood from artisanal fishing becomes increasingly difficult, the children of fishers like Papa Sady are pushed towards taking desperate measures. Papa shares with EJF that his son, Abdou Sady often fished in Joal-Fadiouth, alongside studying. However, as artisanal fishing communities in Senegal have been increasingly pushed to breaking point, Abdou and his peers have run out of options. 

In 2020, Abdou felt he had no choice but to join over 200 other Senegalese migrants on a fishing boat bound for the long journey to the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago just off the coast of Western Sahara. This is one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world. When Abdou travelled in 2020, migrants taking this route decreased due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but numbers have gradually increased since. In 2023 alone, over 3000 people departing from Senegal lost their lives making this journey.

Around 15 people on Abdou’s boat died of hunger. Abdou shared that he too almost died, but because he was used to going without food while fishing, he was able to survive. Abdou told EJF, “So, we stayed there and people started getting sick. Some died. May their souls go to paradise. Some of them had the same dream and purpose, but they never arrived.”

In Senegal, the scarcity of fish is exacerbating other push factors, such as wider socio-economic issues including high unemployment, and a lack of healthcare and educational opportunities. Abdou is one of around 10 young migrants from fishing communities who EJF interviewed in Tenerife and who shared their experiences of leaving Senegal. 

EJF met one migrant, Memedou Racine Seck, in Tenerife’s temporary migrant detention centre. Speaking outside in the fields surrounding the centre, Memedou said: “If I was able to gain enough money in fishing, I would never come to Europe.” Speaking about the journey he made to Tenerife, he shared that 13 people on his vessel – on a separate vessel from Abdou – died during the journey. 

Another migrant named Michael Sene told EJF that he would also prefer to continue living in Senegal but realised that “if I did that my whole life, I would achieve nothing”. The money he made from fishing barely covered his food expenses. “That’s not a life. … Every worker wishes to gain something, to start a family, build a house.” 

At the time EJF interviewed Michael, he was not able to find work yet because he was waiting for his papers to be processed. When living in Senegal, he earned the main income for his family and while he waited for work in Tenerife, he said that his family was struggling. “When I think about it, I feel so powerless.”

In Tenerife, Abdou has built a community from neighbours and new friends who also successfully made the journey. He lives on the top floor of an apartment in a town in the northern part of the island, which, according to Abdou, is “open to everyone who came here by a boat.” The living room is a constant hub of activity, where people who have established new lives in Tenerife come to relax, talk, support one another, and share meals.

For Abdou, despite the life he is building in Tenerife, he is hopeful that one day he will be able to return to Senegal and build his own company there. “Those are the dreams I have deeply in me … To have my own job. To help people in need with my own means. I want every clandestine immigrant landing here to find good conditions and support and not stay in these camps.”

Overfishing and illegal fishing are the main factors contributing to the current shortage of fish – forcing small-scale fishers like Abdou and his father to make desperate choices. However, the situation is not irredeemable. Since taking office, the new administration in Senegal has taken steps in the right direction, including publishing fishing license lists, among other measures. 

While important steps have been taken, there is more work to be done. In November 2024, the EU ended its fishing agreement with Senegal after sharing that the country was not taking sufficient measures to curb illegal fishing. Shortly before this, the international regulatory board from the Fisheries Transparency Initiative revoked Senegal’s status as a country committed to its internationally recognised framework for transparency in marine fisheries.

All of this signals external recognition that the situation needs to improve – Senegal’s government must now take heed and make the necessary changes to regulate its waters.

Young men like Abdou and Memedou should not have to risk their lives and leave their families and communities behind to find the work which they deserve to undertake at home.

As Karim Sall, President of AGIRE – an association for marine protection based in Joal-Fadiouth – told EJF: “I get so angry when these nations complain about immigration, because they are the real pirates and what they do is worse than clandestine immigration. We are risking our life to go, but they come here to steal our fish.”

To combat this, President Bassirou Diomaye Faye must commit to sustainable and transparent management of the country’s fisheries resources by adopting measures such as the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency. By doing so, he will be further committing to reducing the root causes of irregular migration and signalling his commitment to the next generation of young fishers in Senegal.