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10 April 2006
Mauritania and the Ship From Hell
by Dave, onboard the Esperanza
As we sail north towards the Canary Islands, it's sobering to read an article posted by Reuters on the dwindling state of Mauritania's fish stocks. The problems we've been highlighting are widespread across the waters of many poor countries According to the people that journalist Nick Tattersall talks to, the trawlers doing must of the damage in Mauritania are from the EU.As a result, the EU boats can clean out the deeper parts of the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), while Mauritanian boats are small, outdated, and unable to compete. Like in the countries further south, most of the Mauritanian fishermen ply their trade in pirogues - the long wooden boats, painted with bright colours. According to the Fisheries Minister - €600 million of fish caught every year, Mauritania only receives about €100 million - he new government is determined to crack down on this drain on the country's resources.
Then there's the "Ship From Hell", as it's known locally - "the Irish-owned 144-metre Atlantic Dawn, a 64-million-euro trawler-cum-fish-processing-plant that can store 7,000 tonnes of fish, or enough for 18 million meals". It can process a massive 300 tonnes of fish per day.
After fishing off Mauritania for six years, The Atlantic Dawn used to operate under a private agreement (According to The Irish Times, the ship's agent was a relative of recently ousted president Taya [1]), but since last August's bloodless coup it has been repeatedly boarded by the Mauritanian authorities. The Reuters article says that the Atlantic Dawn is now waiting to return under the protection of the next EU agreement, according to the finance director of the Atlantic Dawn's holding company, Niall O'Gorman.
Tattersall also reports on deaths caused by industrial vessels fishing close to shore:
'"The big boats do not respect the zones they should be in. There are accidents where the big boats crash into the pirogues. People have drowned," said Talibouya Tew, 30'
Mauritania is currently working on new EU negotiations - they don't seem to be going to well for the EU, whose delegation went home empty-handed after a meeting in February [2]
Read the full article: Reuters: European trawlers threaten Mauritania's fishermen »
- Dave
[1] "Mauritania taking a tough stand on its natural resources", Pieter Tesch, The Irish Times, Mon, 13 Mar 2006
[2] Ibid.
See also: Atlantic Dawn in Mauritania stand-off, Sunday Business Post (Ireland), Sunday, February 19, 2006, Pieter Tesch and Ed Micheau
The Guardian: EU deal lets Irish fishermen off hook »
Irish Parliamentary discussions: Fishing Vessel Licence & the Atlantic Dawn »
Wikipedia: Mauritania »
(Trivia: Mauritania and Madagascar are the only two countries in the world not to use decimal-based currency. The basic unit of currency, the ouguiya, is comprised of five khoums.)
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