The Documentary Podcast
Introducing: Business Daily: Who’s behind Sierra Leone’s illegal fishing problem?
14 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the illegal fishing problem in Sierra Leone?
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. K-Ruoka verkkokauppa. Sitä saa enemmän kuin mitä tilaa. Meille Akria eläinvakuutuksessa on tärkeää, että lemmikilläsi on mahdollisuus parhaaseen hoitoon. Eläinvakuutuksemme tarjoavat sopivan turvan kaikenlaisiin tarpeisiin.
Sinä valitset vakuutuksen laajuuden, me tarjoamme maksuttoman etäeläinlääkärin sekä nopean suorakorvauksen klinikan kassalla. Lue lisää akria.fi.
Hello and welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Ed Butler and I'd like to recommend the podcast that I host, Business Daily. It looks at how corporate money and decisions are affecting your life and what's really going on in the world of money. You can listen and subscribe to Business Daily wherever you find this podcast.
In today's episode, I've travelled to West Africa to look at how illegal industrial fishing has come to blight the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in coastal communities. Thank you for listening.
Morning.
Morning.
How's your head?
My head is all right. It's my stomach I'm worrying about. Thank you.
Thank you.
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Chapter 2: How does illegal fishing impact local communities in West Africa?
Yes, without fish, we could have been dead people. Because it is somehow cheaper.
Fish is the staple food. People travel from across the country to buy the fish from coastal markets, like this one. But it seems the abundant catch from these rich waters is beginning to dwindle. In front of me is a bunch of guys dragging in a huge net onto the sand. How big is that net? It's more than 200 metres. Wow, a 200 metre net.
So they cast that one out and then in the morning they're pulling it in. And you can see the fish wriggling inside. There's a woman here, she's picking among the jellyfish. Just to pull out some of the smallest sardines, are they? Just to go into her bucket.
Everything will get eaten, except the jellyfish.
Is this a good catch? This is a small catch, is it? What's your name, madam?
Marie-Pierre. America.
Marie-Pierre explains to me the problems the fishing communities are facing, most especially, she says, from the large foreign fishing boats that seem to be arriving here in ever larger numbers. They're supposed to be a seven-mile coastal exclusion zone off the shoreline here, reserved for the local boats.
But trawlers keep coming in, she says, and cutting the fishermen's nets at night to steal their catch. Thomas Touré, the union chief, confirms this account as well.
The illegal fishing is too much here. If we hadn't been here, there should have been no fish. Because government authorities at times do be afraid to come to the fishers. I know that somebody who is doing illegal business has the money to bribe and pay so that he sustains himself. If there is no fish, we cannot feed our children to go to school.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do local fishermen face against industrial trawlers?
They are targeting species that are the bedrock, not just of livelihoods and jobs, but of food security for those people. And in a country like Sierra Leone, where around 60% of all protein comes from fish, if you take that away, people have no options. They go hungry, much bigger problems.
OK, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not doing that.
The Environmental Justice Foundation collects videos like this one, shot by artisanal fishermen, showing direct clashes with foreign trawlers. Here you can see the trawler men throwing projectiles at the artisanal fishing boats, who are complaining that their nets have again been cut.
Steve Trent says the evidence, although patchy because of a lack of detailed research, does indicate that there's been a massive collapse in fish stocks.
We were seeing declines in productivity in what's called catch per unit effort, how many hours you have to fish to catch how many fish. We were getting multiple reports, consistent reports over time from the coastal community saying there's no fish left. As fish stocks have collapsed globally, those economic pressures have driven a push towards illegal fishing.
And I don't see in the near future that demand declining.
Steve Trent, West Africa's illegal fishing trade and its consequences, and Business Daily from the BBC. Tilaamalla K-ruoka verkkokaupasta saat aikaa... K-ruoka verkkokauppa. Sitä saa enemmän kuin mitä tilaa. Hotel Matsissa rakennat lomasi juuri sellaiseksi kuin haluat. Aamu meren rannalla, päivä kaupungin sykkeessä. Ostoksia tai ei suunnitelmia lainkaan. Hotel Mats Espoon Matinkylässä.
Skandinaavista tyylikkyyttä, merenläheisyyttä ja pääkaupunki vain metromatkan päässä. Viivi pidempään, koe enemmän. Katso majoitustarjoukset hotelmats.fi.
Well, we approached the Sierra Leone government for an interview on this matter. Che Kusei is the acting director of fisheries for the government.
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