When I was in Senegal in 2003, the few Chinese vessels fishing along the coast from Mauritania to Liberia were unseaworthy rust-buckets, existing off what licences they could cadge. China’s distant water fleet is now the largest in the world, with about 3,400 vessels fishing in the waters of nearly 100 countries. Now you get a far better grasp of what is going on from a computer program that tracks fishing vessels by satellite. The result of this conflict is that stocks are in trouble all along the west African coast. The 60 licensed Chinese vessels in Ghanaian waters all fly the Ghanaian flag but the fish goes to China.

Source: The Guardian November 15, 2016 11:41 UTC