Battle to stop Africa’s waters being ravaged by China’s dark fishing fleets

The Ghanaian flag that droops from the mast of the Meng Xin 10 is one of the few African things about the ­fishing boat.

The deckhands are Ghanaian, and officially it is owned by a company in Accra. But the officers are Chinese, all the instruments and telemetry are in Mandarin, and the people who call the shots are based in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian.

For 10 years the blue-hulled vessel, one of at least 30 that investigators have linked to Dalian Mengxin Ocean Fishery, has meandered along Ghana’s coastline, dragging a heavy beam along the ocean floor about 200m below, bottom trawling for squid and cuttlefish.

Bottom trawling has been thrust into the spotlight by the new film Ocean with David Attenborough and its footage of a beam racing along the seabed destroying everything in its path, which has provoked outrage.

Campaigners, including Attenborough, hope the film will spur governments into action when the UN Ocean Conference starts tomorrow, and protect west African seas from the devastation that has already been visited on UK and European waters.

More than 80% of the Adriatic Sea has been scarred by bottom trawling, and areas of the North Sea and Irish Sea are also badly affected, with stocks of some fish plummeting. There is a global network of more than 18,000 Marine Protected Areas – designated parts of the ocean where habitats and wildlife are supposed to be prioritised – but bottom trawling is allowed in the majority of the UK’s 377. “Bottom trawling is one of the most destructive fishing methods globally,” said Miren Gutierrez, research associate at ODI Global, the global affairs thinktank.

“It not only indiscriminately removes target and non-target species but also destroys vital seafloor habitats, undermining the regenerative capacity of marine ecosystems.”

The coastline of Ghana was spared this fate until recently. It has some sandy beaches and coral reefs, but little seaside tourism, so the habitats have historically been able to support both local fishing communities and populations of sea turtles, manatees and dolphins.

In the past decade, however, these ecosystems have been threatened by an influx of fishing vessels, many from China’s ghost fleet, so-called because of alleged practices to conceal a ship’s effective Chinese ownership, such as flying the flag of another country or using a complex corporate structure.

The Meng Xin 10 is one such ship, according to investigators’ reports, and its tracking beacon gives a glimpse of how it has crisscrossed the continental shelf, bottom trawling the ocean floor.

Distant-water fleets have operated around the world for decades, roaming further from home as stocks of some species collapse and competition from other boats intensifies. China and Taiwan have the largest fleets, followed by Japan, South Korea and Spain.

The Chinese fleet has been expanding since the 1980s, and although it is officially capped at 3,000 vessels, a complex system of opaque ownership structures means that the true figure is around 17,000, according to ODI Global.

China catches about 12m tonnes of wild fish a year, one of the highest totals in the world, and it is also thought to have 15% of the global bottom trawl catch, estimated at 4.1m tonnes a year – about half the amount of fish eaten in the EU. Oceana, the largest international advocacy organisation for ocean conservation, estimated that it receives subsidies of around $2.5bn.

The Chinese fleet works from the South China Sea to South America and the Antarctic. It has been accused of “slash and burn” fishing practices and disabling tracking systems to avoid detection as well as human rights abuses on some vessels.

In recent years its attention has turned to west Africa. It has been estimated about 90% of the industrial trawlers in Ghana are controlled by Chinese firms, despite the country’s ban on foreign-operated fishing operations.

In April, in a rare setback for the ghost fleet, the Meng Xin 10 was banned from fishing, and Ghana’s fishing ministry suspended the licences for it and three other bottom trawlers for 12 months, saying the industrial trawlers had been engaged in “multiple illegal fishing practices”.

The official statement said the boats had dumped fish overboard. Bottom trawling is indiscriminate, and about a third to half of a bottom trawler’s catch can be filled with unwanted fish, known as bycatch.

They had caught juvenile fish, the ministry said – devastating for fish stocks. And they had fished in restricted zones and carried out “unauthorised transshipment”, a practice where a vessel that has caught more than its quota transfers it to another ship.

Little of the destruction of Ghana’s marine habitats can be seen from the shoreline. But the impact of regularly raking over spawning grounds on the ocean floor can be seen in local fish species. Analysis by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) showed that species living near the ocean floor such as Golden African snapper and bluespotted seabream are smaller than they once were.

Groups that monitor illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing have serious concerns about the Chinese fleet. The IUU Fishing Risk Index rates China as the worst performing nation out of 152, and the Financial Transparency Coalition alleged in 2022 that out of the top 10 companies involved globally in illegal fishing, eight were from China.

Marie Colombier, senior ocean policy adviser at the EJF, which has investigated illegal fishing, said the same patterns could be seen in fishing fleets from Europe to the coasts of west Africa – “powerful industrial fleets, often backed by public subsidies, operating with impunity in areas that should be off limits”.

Crew are often victims themselves, she said, trapped at sea for years “with no hope of escape, [subjected] to extreme working hours, physical abuse and violence, or [refused] pay, adequate food or water, or medical support”.

Local fishing communities report having their nets destroyed. “In some cases, industrial vessels have killed artisanal fishers by colliding with their boats,” Colombier added.

Emails to an address identified as belonging to Dalian Menxing Ocean Fishery were not answered. The Chinese embassy in London said in a statement: “As a responsible nation, China places high importance on the scientific conservation and sustainable utilisation of fishery resources.”

It said China had rights under international law to fish in the high seas while fulfilling international obligations: “China has established a comprehensive management system for distant-water fisheries, implementing the world’s strictest vessel monitoring measures, and has taken the initiative to impose moratoriums in certain high seas areas. China collaborates with the international ­community to rigorously combat IUU fishing activities.”

It has signed up to a UN convention on marine biodiversity and is a member of eight regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs). “China consistently ranks among the top performers in compliance within these RFMOs,” it said.

Photo by John Wessels/AFP via Getty