Sulayman Bojang, a 30-year-old environmental activist, says that when he first heard, in 2016, that a Chinese company called Golden Lead wanted to establish a fishmeal factory in his small coastal town in south-west Gambia, he was excited. “We thought that our youths would get work and be able to feed our families,” he said. “Having a factory in Gunjur would be a big deal in terms of development.”

However, within a few months of the fishmeal factory opening in Gunjur in 2016 a terrible odor enveloped the community. In May 2017 Gunjurians woke up to find that the water in the community wildlife reserve, next to the factory, had turned red. Residents also began to complain of dead fish and mammals washing up on their beach.

Two years into the democratically elected government of Adama Barrow, Gambians are being increasingly vocal about what they see as the environmental degradation befalling their country. While a handful of communities have successfully fought for their environmental rights, many complain that the new government is not receptive – especially when the interests of foreign businesses are involved.

Since 2016 a number of foreign-owned fishmeal factories have been established on Gambia’s picturesque Atlantic coastline. These factories turn Gambian fish into a powder or cake that is shipped to Asia to be used as animal fodder. According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2018 Chinese imports of fishmeal totaled 1.47 million tonnes, mostly coming from South America, but increasingly from Africa as well. While business booms, activists in these communities complain that pollution from the factories is destroying their natural environment.

Social media postings of the degradation caught the attention of the National Environmental Agency (NEA), who began their own investigation. In mid-June 2017 the NEA took Golden Lead to court for allegedly discharging waste water into the ocean without the relevant permission. However, within two weeks it was announced that the company had settled out-of-court for US$25,000.

A junior programme officer with the agency tells Equal Times: “You had the feeling we were being pressured from the top to settle … it was the first time we felt this way under the new government.”

By 1 July 2017 the factory was back in operation. Some residents felt that the government was failing to protect their environment. They demanded that the factory remove the pipe pumping wastewater into the ocean. In March 2018 a group of activists, including Bojang, forcibly removed the pipe. They were promptly arrested for their action.

Bojang and his fellow protestors were released without being charged and the pipe was reinstalled. Today, officials at the NEA say that Golden Lead submits its quarterly tests on time and the factory is no longer polluting the ocean. However local activists disagree, and point to other deleterious effects of the factory such as overfishing and rising fish prices in the market. “We are really wondering who our government is working for,” says Bojang.

Government complicity

Ismaila Ceesay, a professor of political science at the University of The Gambia says he is suspicious of some of the deals between members of the government and various foreign businessmen. “Someone in government is giving these ‘investors’ what they want. We see what [the government] is getting from them,” he says, referencing a new US$50 million conference centre being built on a piece of land that used to be a part of Bijilo National Park. “The government is complicit in the destruction of our environment with these foreign companies.”

Since replacing dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh in 2017, the administration of Adama Barrow has made attracting foreign investment a key part of its agenda. In July 2017 Gambia signed a free-trade deal with China and has been in talks with Norwegian and Mauritanian investors. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development foreign direct investment in the country has risen from US$15 million in 2015 to US$29 million in 2018.

While Gambians welcome much needed foreign investment, many have serious concerns about the nature of those investments. Activists point to numerous examples where they contend that the government is putting the interests of investors before those of communities.

Last month the government announced plans to de-reserve a section of Salagi Forest Park outside the capital, apparently in order to make way for construction equipment being used at the new conference centre. Following protest by community activists the government announced it will reconsider these plans.

Separately, there are widespread indications that foreign-owned vessels are overfishing in Gambian waters. In 2017 the Ministry of Fisheries removed an embargo on industrial fishing that had been in place since 2015. Last year the Gambian navy impounded three Chinese fishing vessels for fishing illegally off the coast.

In Mandinari, a small town on the banks of the Gambia River, a team of Chinese and Gambian fishermen have been accused by activists of over-fishing, catching restricted species, and fishing in areas used for replenishing stocks. When Equal Times contacted the self-identified manager of the fishing operation for clarification he blocked our calls and refused to meet with us. Representatives at the Ministry of Fisheries would only say that an investigation was underway. According to sources in the community the team continues to catch and sell fish in the village.

Ray of hope

In other places, however, environmental activists have had more success in stopping problematic foreign businesses. Abdoulie Samateh, a 26-year-old college student, grew up on the edge of Brikama, Gambia’s second largest city. As a child, he used to play in what was once a large forest. In early 2017 his father complained that a horrible odor was waking him up in the middle of the night.

Samateh took his motorcycle out one evening and found the source of the odor: smoke billowing from behind a nondescript wall with a red iron door. “We had no idea what was happening back there,” he says, “we just knew we were getting sick.”

The source of Samateh’s family’s illness was a makeshift Chinese-run tyre pyrolysis factory called New Energy Enterprise (NEE). Tyre pyrolysis refers to the burning of used tyres at high heat in zero-oxygen chambers to render a heavy-duty fuel used for shipping vessels. “It can be a clean tech process,” says Martin von Wolfersdorff, a self-identifying ‘tyre pyrolysis evangelist’ based in Germany. However, “amateur, poorly-operated pyrolysis plants are committing crimes against the environment.”

Tyre pyroloysis has been hailed by the recycling industry as one way to deal with the estimated one billion tyres discarded every year. While pyrolysis factories in Europe and North America adhere to strict environmental regulations, some factories in the developing world have been accused of toxic emissions and environmental degradation.

According to the Toxicology Data Network raw carbon black – a powder by-product of poorly done pyrolysis – has been found to cause a wide range of chest and lung problems, and is possibly carcinogenic to humans. In Brikama, the raw carbon black, left outside the factory walls in old plastic sacks, has been stirred up by the wind and has seeped into the soil.

When Gambian journalists visited the site earlier this year they photographed a pit filled with an oily liquid, which is often the by-product of amateur pyrolysis operations and can contain high amounts of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Officials at the NEA said they were not informed of these toxic by-products when a representative from NEE gave a presentation on pyrolysis to the agency in mid-2015. After the presentation verbal, but not written, approval was granted. The factory has been in operation from the end of 2016 until earlier this year without follow up from the NEA.

Samateh and other community members complained to Jammeh Kebba, the technical unit head at the Department of Forestry. Kebba said he tried to approach the owner of the factory, but was rebuffed. Instead Kebba gave an interview to a local news station, which attracted significant attention. Soon after, the NEA got involved and, shortly thereafter, black smoke stopped emanating from the factory.

Samateh and others are not celebrating yet. “When we know for sure they will not come back, then we can jubilate. But I still don’t trust our government to not take bribes,” says Samateh. “We must make sure they will never operate here again.”