"It's not a factory out there!"

The EU's 'legalised' support for EU vessels fishing off the west coast of Africa debate continues. Guardian Environmental Editor witnessed this at first hand as the biggest boat in the fleet hauled a trawl with a code end full of fish. Once a rich natural resource for countries like Senegal, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the sea-fishing areas of west Africa have fallen prey to the world's largest and most modern fishing fleets. John Vidal boards the Green Peace ship Arctic Sunrise to investigate a problem that has serious implications for regional prosperity John Vidal's travel costs to Senegal were paid by Greenpeace. The NGO had no say over editorial content 

Extract from the Greenpeace web site:

"It seems the captain of Britain’s largest fishing boat isn’t partial to a spot of tea, despite a kind invitation from John Vidal, Environment Editor of the Guardian, as he radioed the vessel from our ship the Arctic Sunrise, off the coast of Mauritania. (See for yourself in John’s video, above.) But perhaps it was the topic of conversation that was less than palatable. This vessel is just one of many destructive European factory trawlers that our ship has encountered off West Africa in the last six weeks. It’s a classic example of how Europe’s most powerful fishing interests continue to abuse our oceans, at the expense of the local communities that rely on them. While the owner of the Cornelis Vrolijk claims its company doesn’t receive taxpayer subsidies for its operations and that it pays licence fees to Mauritania, we know the reality is rather different. The fleet of freezer trawlers that this vessel belongs to receives, for example, millions of Euros in fuel tax exemptions every year. On top of that, taxpayers pay 90 per cent of the fees for these vessels to access West African waters."