A recent report from Morocco has uncovered evidence of an octopus smuggling scheme stretching from Mauritania to Europe.
On 29 January, in the town of Dakhla, Moroccan police arrested a truck driver and seized five metric tons (MT) of octopus. The driver had carried the shipment from Mauritania and declared the correct amount of five MT, but the documents for the shipment showed 25 MT.
The driver was working for an organized syndicate that has been laundering illegally-fished Moroccan octopus by overstating imports of Mauritanian product using forged documents, according to the Moroccan news outlet The Reporter. The truck drivers then fill out the missing amount (in this case, another 20 MT) with illegally-caught octopus at cold storage facilities in southern Morocco. The final product enters the European Union via Spain. The truck that was stopped is one of about a dozen that make regular trips to launder the product, police discovered.
The octopus is often caught illegally during the biological rest period, when fishing is prohibited. Historically, authorities have been lax in enforcement, only stepping up arrests immediately prior to the season opening. Meanwhile, due to overfishing and a declining resource, the Moroccan season was shortened; the opening was delayed from 15 December to 5 January. A decline in Moroccan output last year was one of the reasons for skyrocketing octopus prices. However, rather than attempt to rebuild the stocks, the government has allowed those high prices to drive increased smuggling.
Access to offshore fishing in Mauritania and Morocco is allowed for E.U. license-holders, but this does not cover octopus or shrimp. A new agreement ratified in December by E.U. and Morocco — after a delay over whether it could include occupied Western Sahara — provides for an increase of 30 percent in the financial payment to Morocco, from EUR 40 million (USD 54 million) a year to EUR 52.2 million (59 million), and the number of vessels will increase from 120 to 128.
Meanwhile, Africa News reported that Mauritania and Senegal have reached an agreement that will allow Senegalese fishermen to fish in Mauritanian waters legally. They have long done so illegally, but tensions rose and enforcement increased after the Mauritanian coast guard fired on a Senegalese fishing vessel and killed one fisherman on 29 January, 2018. Mauritanian-owned shops in the town of Saint-Louis were looted in response.
Senegal has a large fishing sector, while Mauritanians are traditionally pastoralists with a weak fishing tradition; the Mauritanian fleet is not sufficient to exploit the resource. Under the new convention, which came into effect at the end of January, 400 Mauritanian licenses are available to Senegalese fishermen, who can take an annual quota of 50,000 MT of pelagic fish, including sardinella, horse mackerel, ethmalose (bonga-fish, or Ethmalosa fimbriata) and anchovies.
In exchange, Senegal must pay Mauritania EUR 15.00 (USD 16.98) for each MT of fish landed; EUR 10 (USD 11.31) from fishermen and EUR 5.00 (USD 5.66) from the Senegalese government. The vessels are to be inspected in Mauritania before continuing to their home port and 6 percent of the catch is to be reserved for the Mauritanian market.
Some Senegalese politicians think their government could have gotten more. Former Prime Minister Idrissa Seck has pleaded for bigger fishing quotas, while Pastef-Les Patriotes party candidate Ousmane Sonko has promised to suspend and renegotiate the agreements.
Governments along the West African coast are caught in a difficult position; Lacking the means to adequately enforce fishery laws, they must either strike the best payment-for-access deals they can manage or see poaching go on with no benefit to the state.
