Introduction
The current climate crisis is increasingly evident in West African coastal ecosystems, with displacement of species due to warming ocean waters, soil erosion due to the direction and size of currents, more frequent ocean winds and rising sea levels (Sané et al. 2021). In Senegal these conditions are compounded by the consequences of public policies determined by international trade agreements that exacerbate the over-exploitation of the marine environment (Moreno-Maestro and Aris 2013), leading to the expansion of fish oil and fishmeal factories aimed at export markets. These factors create multiple challenges, from a shortage of fish available in the local market to the dangers posed to a population that depends on fish both for its physical survival and for the income that women derive from fish processing.1 These conditions are captured in the comment of a fish processor, Tenin Ndiaye: ‘[i]n artisanal processing, we only have the canoes. If the canoes don’t have fish, if they go fishing and have nothing, we have nothing to process.’2
Research in 2011 stated that more than 70% of the women had more than 10 years’ experience and were, on average, heads of families of six to eight people (DPM in Fall et al. 2014). Income varied according to the scale of production, the equipment used and the clientele, and was used to cover daily expenses for food, school, repairs to production equipment, and so on (ibid., 2535). The quantities of processed products varied according to the time of year. Historically, the period of low production corresponded to the rainy season (July to September) and the highest production levels were obtained during the rest of the year.
The context of fish scarcity is no more than two generations old. Gnilane Sané, one of the first women fish processors in Joal-Fadiouth, which is in the department of Mbour in Thiès region, commented that when she began processing she earned a lot of money, and that it was only after she retired that she heard that ‘things have changed a lot’, with a fast decline in processors’ livelihoods. Tension between the public authorities and the Senegalese fishing sector is a constant because, while the state has prioritised the needs of export markets, the local population has fought for food sovereignty and the survival of the environment by defending its own activities, whether by fishing or fish processing.
The Senegalese state and the fishing sector
Since independence in 1960, the Senegalese government has approached the economy within a development framework, where an ideology of ‘growth’ has marked every decision. Embracing such a developmentalist framework – an approach epitomising anthropocentric ontology, as characterised in Escobar’s writings – the state assumed that industrial fishing constituted progress, interpreting reality in terms of imbalance between a supposed abundance of ‘natural resources’ in the marine environment and the low catch capacity of Senegalese boats. This ‘progress’ in practice meant fully exploiting so-called natural resources. To this end, the state provided subsidies to industrial fishing (Ba 2002, 190–191) and signed trade agreements with foreign countries permitting catches in their waters. Not only the fishing sector but also other sectors of the Senegalese economy depended on the resulting compensation (Guillotreau, Proutière-Maulion, and Vallé 2011).3
The structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, with the implementation of trade liberalisation and privatisation policies (Dembelé 2007; Diop and Magrin 2012), were decisive in establishing this orientation in fishing policies, with fishery product exports taking precedence over other products such as groundnut and phosphate exports (Chauveau and Samba 2012). It was in this historical context that a large section of the artisanal fishing industry was reoriented towards foreign markets, mainly in Europe and Asia, as a means of accumulating foreign currency. This reorientation was bolstered by the devaluation of the West African CFA franc, crucial for Senegal’s objective of strengthening the competitiveness of its products (ENDA 2007, in Thiao 2012).
The shortages on the local market caused by industrial fishing4 have been exacerbated by the growth of artisanal fishing, as these fishers sell their catches to foreign intermediaries at a higher price than the local market can afford (FAO 2008).5 At the same time as the small-scale, artisanal fishing industry grew, local consumption of fresh products decreased from 82.7% of total fish in 1981 to 60% by the end of the 2000s (Thiao 2012, 307). Because of this,
it would be illusory to oppose an industrial fishery aimed at exports to an artisanal fishery that would supposedly be entirely focused on satisfying the domestic market, where the socio-economic effects would be positive and the weak means would guarantee a limited impact on resources. (Diop and Magrin 2012, 321).6
Compounding the growth of fishmeal and fish oil factories described above, this reorientation of artisanal fishing towards exports has had obvious consequences for the women processors, with a declining share of the fish destined for traditional processing. Traditional processing is the preservation of fish through drying and smoking techniques (Mbaye, in Fall et al. 2014), with 90% of the work carried out by women. Noting that the problem is not exclusive to Joal-Fadiouth, local fish processor Albertine Gaye commented that ‘in St Louis, in Dakar, in Cayar – everywhere where there are processing sites and fishing piers – we have problems. Work is no longer going on. Work is not going on.’
These developments have had a drastic impact on supply to the domestic market, on which women’s activity in the sector depends. Karim Sall, current president of the Agire Association, an organisation that operates at the level of the Joal-Fadiouth Marine Protected Area, commented on this shrinking availability:
[the time] when we had the possibility to export was when fishing started to be attacked. Artisanal fishing was not highly commercialised. It was commercialised for the people or for the rest of the country. Even if you fished 10 million tonnes, you didn’t know who to sell it to.
I argue that what Escobar terms the ‘dominant ontology of devastation’ (2017, 70) is evident in this testimony, where the increase in catches is driven by productivity growth and not by local need. Production destined for local and subregional consumption has been negatively affected by the overwhelming social and political impact of developmentalist change, which is well captured by Escobar’s framework of ‘dualistic ontology of separation, control and appropriation’ (ibid., 89). Several interviewees commented on these challenges, including the following:
The current problem of transformation is the shortage of products. Products are in short supply. Fish is becoming extinct. It is becoming extinct in Senegal. (Ténin Ndiaye)
I was one of the first to do the processing in Joal. There were lots and lots of fish. … You didn’t [need to] spend 350 [CFA] francs for a species that is totally extinct today. (Gnilane Sané)
Based on these testimonies, it is clear that local processing is in danger when ‘development’ orients economic activity towards exports, in contrast to the more holistic understanding of fish processing held by many participants that emphasises the ontological relationship between ‘everything that exists’; in this case, between marine biodiversity, communities and the environment as a whole. Specifically, women fish processors express an awareness of the interconnected nature of their work, state economic strategy and the dangers posed by climate change.
Despite the threat to local economic activities, Senegal has continued to sign agreements with the EU up to the present day, with a single hiatus from 2006 to 2014, when the Senegalese government temporarily refused renewal due to the EU’s proposed terms of compensation, percentage of the catch and permitted percentage of local Senegalese personnel on board (Emonet 2006). From the moment it refused to sign, the Senegalese government notably claimed that it was prioritising of artisanal fisheries and domestic business development, incorporating the concept of ‘sustainable fisheries’ into a number of policy programmes purportedly to address both food security and sustainable development (Rougyatou Ka, Ba, and Mawloud Diakhaté 2022, 15). For example, the Ministry of Fisheries and the Maritime Economy published a ‘Fisheries and aquaculture sectoral policy letter (2008–2013)’ declaring its objectives of ‘significant reforms aimed at sustainably managing fishery resources, restoring coastal and inland ecosystems and increasing the added value of fishery products’. Recognising that the objectives had not been met, the government reiterated these goals in its subsequent ‘Sectoral policy letter for the development of fisheries and aquaculture (2016–2023)’, stating that
[the policy] will be implemented through the following three sectoral programmes: 1) sustainable management of fisheries resources and restoration of habitats programme, aimed at making the management of maritime and continental fishing more sustainable; 2) aquaculture development programme; and 3) enhancement of fisheries production programme. (Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy 2016, 7)7
Faced with this dilemma, in February 2012 a number of local artisanal fisheries councils, fishers’ associations, NGOs and women processors’ associations came together and published a joint declaration on fisheries. The signatories declared:8
We are determined to mobilise in solidarity against the granting of fishing authorisations to the foreign trawler fleet for as long as sustainable fishing conditions are not established in Senegalese waters. [Among the demands made are] the immediate revocation of fishing authorisations given to foreign industrial fleets, a moratorium on the granting of new authorisations to foreign industrial fishing, the control of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, the implementation of recommendations aimed at stabilising stocks of species in a situation of over-exploitation, the reinforcement of the networks of Marine Protected Areas, the accompaniment and strengthening of the artisanal sector and the reinforcement of subregional cooperation for the improvement of shared stock management, research and joint surveillance.
Amid this context of rising tensions, relations with the EU were resumed in 2014 within the framework of the EU’s Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements.9 The Minister of Fisheries at the time, a well-known environmentalist, discussed the agreement when he was interviewed in 2015:
When the European Union suspended the agreements [2006–14], what happened was that their boats did not return to Europe. The Spanish boats, the French boats, have stayed, they have set up companies under Senegalese law that take our fish and export it to their countries. All the fish! So, when I became minister, I said: there is a singular agreement that has existed since 2006 that has been signed with the tuna fishermen, Spanish and French. What is this exception that lasts nine years! I said to the European Union: do you want to fish my tuna? If you want to fish it, you have to pay the fee. Now they bring millions of [CFA] francs to my country, it allows the continuation of fishing for tuna, because since 2006 they haven’t stopped fishing for tuna! But you are not allowed to fish the small ones, you only fish for tuna. This is the agreement that I signed when I was minister. (Haïdar El Ali, Senegalese Minister of Fisheries 2013–14)
However, from the Ministry of Fisheries itself, the Director of Maritime Fisheries when interviewed in 2012 cast doubt on the ability to impose controls on fishing to some species and not others, stating that ‘Senegal is characterised by the multiplicity of species, all species are mixed everywhere, and this is a problem’ (Moustapha Thiam, Ministry of Fisheries). In essence, over-exploitation of tuna has an impact on other species in the marine environment.
The most recent agreement signed with the EU covers the period 2019–24. This agreement also includes the commitment to ‘promote sustainable fisheries and protect marine biodiversity’.10 However, I concur with Naredo (1997) that the concept of ‘sustainable’ in this case, applied to fisheries, is merely a generalised claim that does not automatically translate into the wider systemic or structural change. The concept is assumed to have a transformative character, producing change simply by naming it, instead of implementing much-needed restructuring in practice. In short, this historical overview reveals two crucial issues: (1) that responsible fisheries management and policy change have been pushed aside in negotiations between Senegal and the EU, with Senegal continuing to favour compensation for ‘extraction’ and the EU clamouring for access to Senegalese waters; and 2) that there is a mobilised population denouncing these agreements and attempting to pressure the government to shift the orientation of its fishing policies in the interests of both food security and the protection of the marine environment.
Women fish processors in Senegal
One of the social consequences of the globalisation of markets has been the large internal movement of people from rural areas to the coast to work in the fishing sector. This is the case historically, as exemplified by the family of Albertine Gaye, a woman processor whose ancestors are from outside Joal-Fadiouth. She described how ‘it is because of fishing that [our family] came here. And we were born here, and our children were born here. Now they are from Joal.’
In recent decades, fishing districts in this area have grown faster than the national average and coastal towns have seen their populations multiply. This development is well illustrated by Joal-Fadiouth, which had 18,000 inhabitants in 1988 and tripled in size to a population of 54,000 by 2019, arguably contributing to the over-exploitation of the maritime environment. This increase in population and fishing activity is reflected in the diverse origins of the women now processing the fish. Processor Tenin Ndiaye recounted, ‘[t]oday, in this place, there are only a few of us of Joal origin. All the rest are Senegalese women who come from other towns and cities.’ Women who come to Joal-Fadiouth to work in fish processing come not only from other parts of Senegal, but also from other countries in the subregion such as Aissatou, from Guinea, who is employed as a processor in Khelcom: ‘I came here to work with fish. That’s why we came here, to get by. There is nothing in our country, there is nothing.’
Khelcom, one of the largest fish processing sites in West Africa, is located in Joal-Fadiouth, drawing hundreds of women to the area to work. Two types of products are processed at Khelcom: smoked fish, kecax, and dried fish, gejj. The women carry out the entire production system: gutting, trimming, salting, fermenting and drying. They buy the fish from the wharf, hire carts to transport it to Khelcom, and buy the salt and millet stalks for the smoking. Once processed, the fish is packed for distribution throughout Senegal and West Africa.
In addition to the difficult conditions caused by the decline in fish available for local consumption, export sectors have favoured products with a high commercial value (for example, cephalopods, shrimp and groundfish), leaving only small maritime products for the domestic market (such as sardine, anchovy and herring) (Guillotreau, Proutière-Maulion, and Vallé 2011). When the eight fishmeal and fish oil factories currently in Senegal were established, reassurances were given that local supplies would not be affected. But Karim Sall described the activities of the Omega Fishing factory located in Joal-Fadiouth, noting that ‘[t]hey said they were going to use fish waste to make fishmeal, but they don’t use fish waste, they use fresh sardines. They buy the fish from the seashore, from the quay.’11 Smaller fish are sought for animal consumption in Europe and Asia, leaving women with no fish for processing.12 Senegalese exports of small pelagics rose from 70,944 tonnes in 2009 to more than 200,000 tonnes in 2019. Conversely, from more than 217,000 tonnes of small fish on the local market in 2009, the total fell drastically to 139,000 tonnes in 2018. In terms of individual consumption, annual consumption per inhabitant fell from 18 kilograms in 2009 to half that level, nine kilograms, in 2018 (Dème and Dème 2021, 11–12), a serious decline from a nutritional standpoint. Factories require as much as five kilograms of fish to produce one kilogram of fishmeal, accelerating the over-exploitation of the marine environment and leaving entire regions with shortages. These conditions are compounded by health problems in areas close to fish factories, where local communities report an increase in respiratory diseases and gastrointestinal problems resulting from industrial sewage (Thiao et Bunting 2022, 50).
Women engaged in fish processing have formed organisations to collectivise and empower their economic activities in the face of the challenges posed by wider market forces. They have set up groupements d’intérêt economique (economic interest groups – GIEs), formally organised groups that are empowered to receive public funding for their activities. GIEs are usually created from traditional women’s associations but are also linked to broader economic activities and training (Lulli 2003; Coulibaly 2023). As these GIEs are exclusively for women, access to the resources is for women only. Although this collectivisation is mainly carried out by women, some men take part in the activities due to the lack of work. But, comments Tenin Ndiaye,
The work is women’s work. The GIE is a women’s GIE. It is not a men’s and women’s GIE. The men are there, they work to earn their bread, but they are not part of the GIE. It’s only the women.
In sum, the dynamics of the processing sites have heightened scarcity and instability because of the over-exploitation of industrial fishing and the reorientation of artisanal fishing. The testimony of a local GIE federation treasurer makes this point clear:
Before, when we had fish, we worked very well, we took care of the children’s studies, the house and everything at home. But nowadays we have enormous difficulties. You go to work and you have nothing. You pay for the children’s schooling, the children’s health care, the cleaning of the house … Without means, this is not possible. (Albertine Gaye, treasurer of Diam Bougoume)
Before the Omega Fishing factory was built, for example, women started to organise against its construction, well aware of its potentially harmful impact on their livelihoods and the environment, both locally and in other regions, as the fish from the port of Joal-Fadiouth historically was also destined for other processing sites. Given the dangers posed by these new factories, fish processor Tenin Ndiaye declared: ‘we are not going to let them do it. We are all together. If there is a disease, we are all affected.’ This insistence of ‘we are not going to let them do it’ was translated into various public awareness-raising activities directed at the authorities, neighbourhood leaders and the community. However, despite this mobilisation, they did not succeed in stopping the installation of the fishmeal and fish oil factory.
The struggle continues to this day in Joal-Fadiouth, where the factory remains open and operating at full capacity. Campaigns such as Greenpeace Afrique’s AnaSamaJën (where is my fish?) demand the closure of fishmeal and fish oil factories across Senegal. As part of the campaign, on 8 March 2022, women from different processing sites across Senegal committed a day of struggle to demands for sustainable fisheries management practices that would allow them to continue their activities and maintain their autonomy in this women-led economic activity. Using short videos in which representatives of associations of women processors explained their circumstances, they continued the work of raising awareness and denouncing the conditions that they face. The following testimonies, drawn from the campaign materials, reflect the experiences of women fish processors across Senegal who, as Tenin pointed out, ‘all suffer from the same disease’:
We used to make 10 to 30 boxes of fish and now we have nothing. We haven’t worked for months, so why celebrate 8 March with joy? The fishermen are here all the time, and climate change doesn’t help. We are tired because nobody is helping us. The fishing sector is very angry with the authorities. (Aïssatou Faye, president of a fish processing GIE)
This year the celebration will be different because we are going to talk about our situation. The fishing agreements are at the root of our ills, the fishmeal factories also impact on our work. There are factories that, after sorting the fish, sell us the waste when they should have thrown it away. But we are forced to buy the waste to work. Our husbands are fishermen, and they have nothing. Unfortunately, most of our children are candidates for clandestine emigration. We call on Mme Marième Faye Sall [wife of current president Macky Sall] to join our cause. She can carry our voice on the issues of fishing agreements and fishmeal factories. (Adja Fotou Kine Diop, president of the association of women processors in Bargny)
Meanwhile, in Joal-Fadiouth, women are continuing to fight for the closure of the fishmeal and fish oil factory. A recent action was the participation of several representatives of women processors in a workshop as part of a national advocacy coalition on fishmeal and fish oil production in Senegal, held in Saly in July 2023. Organised by ADEPA/WADAF (West African Association for the development of artisanal fishing) and RAMPAO (Network of protected marine zones in West Africa), the workshop had a broad base of support. Coming out of the workshop, high priority has been given to efforts at building unity and carrying out joint actions and mobilisation through different actors in the sector.
Resistance of women fish processors from relational ontologies in Joal-Fadiouth
Forms of resistance are correlative to power but are likewise dependent on local situations and contexts (Mbembé 2016). In Joal-Fadiouth, women’s struggle is continuous and framed in what I argue is a relational ontology. Such a framework recognises that all life forms, human and non-human, are interconnected, producing a critical relational matrix, as Escobar (2017) deploys the term, crucially embodied in the organisational forms described above. The survival of the fishing sector, on which the social reproduction of the group depends, is likewise understood to be linked to the environment and surroundings, hence the determination, for example, not to process any fish that is too small. ‘You have to respect them, otherwise they will disappear. And in a house, if there are no small ones, there will be no big ones’, said Khady Ndiaye, president of the Joal local fishing union at a meeting in 2012.
The process of women’s self-organisation in Khelcom provides a useful example of the formation of collective resistance. The association was created in 2006 as a federation of GIEs under the name Diam Bougoume (meaning ‘we want peace’ in Sereer). Each of its 370 members makes a contribution to the upkeep of the processing site, in addition to the money earned from renting the fires to non-members. Members of the organisation commented:
You have to pay 25,000–30,000 [CFA] francs to be a member. With that money we do a lot of things: we take money to prepare the general assembly; to travel when we have seminars or meetings; also to give credit to buy goods; to give help. (Khady Ndiaye)
When there is a problem, we bring it to the association to solve the problem together. We work together to meet our needs. When we have to solve something, we solve it like this. The situation is very difficult at the moment. If there are no fish, what are we going to work on? If you don’t eat, you can’t work. Still, we manage. When one of us has a problem, we do everything to solve it. We are human, we need to work together to help each other. We need to work together. (Tenin Ndiaye)
Diam Bougoume is closely linked to another form of organisation called a tontine – a collectively funded group – that Joal-Fadiouth’s women processors have relied upon since 2004. It is often from the tontines that the GIEs are born. Open also to women who do not engage in fish processing, the regular tontine meetings help to consolidate ties and enlarge the circle of friends that will become the support network. It is a form of solidarity upon which daily life pivots and a form of savings and popular credit (Lulli 2003), but also much more than that. I concur with Essombe Edimo when he states that the tontine has a central political function insofar as it is part of a set of organisational practices that regulate social relations (Essombe Edimo 1993, 118); in this case, it is a system enabling fish processors to withstand the extremely challenging conditions created by climate harm, over-exploitation and diminished livelihoods in the face of market forces and state policy. In sum, the economic and cultural practices that sustain life are in danger. As Bombo Ndir, chairwoman of the Dakar Migration, Gender and Development Network, declared in a meeting:
If we have work, if we the women, if we the mothers, if we have work as we have always had … . We have had it selling processed fish, but what happens? … They have taken away all my powers as a woman to go and sell, to bring the money, to manage it and to keep everyone calm at home. They have taken it away from me. (Alianza por la Solidaridad 2020)
Although such collective forms of organisation have historically helped to facilitate survival and adaptation to the market economy, even during the economic crisis of the 1980s (Sow and Tété 2007), their potential today to adapt and help overcome the extreme conditions posed by extractive overfishing remains to be seen. What does seem clear is that survival can be guaranteed not as individuals but as members of a collective; and the GIE and the tontine, for example, undoubtedly demonstrate the capacity of Senegalese communities to self-manage and self-organise.
Conclusions
The climate emergency is a consequence of ostensible ‘development’ and an ideology of market growth, an economy governed by a specific cultural logic of the global North and the international financial institutions dominated by its countries. This logic, although embraced (in a straitjacket?) by the Senegalese government, is often rejected by the people who suffer as a result of these growth-driven priorities and who see their livelihoods endangered and their environment polluted. Historically, tied hand and foot by externally imposed financial constraints, responsible fisheries management is subordinated in state policy to the extractive interests that set the terms in EU and bilateral agreements, policies which, in turn, hypocritically call upon the small-scale producer to make efforts towards ‘sustainability’.
These contradictions raise the question of whether the state’s macroeconomic priorities are compatible with the environmental and economic interests of the population: as Dr Aliou Ba, head of Greenpeace Afrique’s Ocean campaign, has said: ‘[i]f there is fish, there is life; if there is no fish, there is no life.’
In the face of the brutality unleashed by the violence of extractive capitalism, including overfishing, and exemplified here by the impact of the Senegalese state’s fishing agreements with the EU and the installation of foreign fishmeal and fish oil factories, women fish processors engage in resistance based on their own cultural practices. Practices such as the GIE and the tontine, woven together through interconnected relationships and solidarity, enable the reproduction of the group and their communities, incorporating, in their own form, food sovereignty and women’s autonomy. This resistance and self-organisation are important examples of a struggle for survival in the face of a multi-faceted crisis.