- The deepwater port at Kribi, Cameroon, is a massive project, begun in 2011 and slated for completion in 2040.
- It aims to decongest the existing port at Douala and become a trade hub for all Central African countries.
- The port is located just a few kilometers from Cameroon’s only marine protected area, home to green, olive ridley and hawksbill turtles.
- While aiming to improve the country’s economy, the port has generated unintended environmental consequences, intensifying coastal erosion, increasing human pressure and pollution, and endangering marine life and local fishers’ livelihoods.
Since he was old enough to work, Sam Elong has been a fisherman in Kribi, a coastal town of more than 90,000 inhabitants that stretches along the shore of the Gulf of Guinea at the mouth of the Kienké and Lobé rivers in Cameroon.
“Before, when we went fishing, we used to come back with 100-150 kg [220-330 pounds] of fish,” Elong tells Mongabay during a video call. “But over the last 10 years or so, since the port has been built, fish have been less easy to find … The construction of the port has made a lot of noise, and the waves are stronger. It pushes the fish away. Now, after fishing, we come home with 70 to 80 kg [154-176 lbs] of fish.”
A father of four in his 40s, Elong spends most of his time at sea, returning to the dock only on market days, Wednesdays and Saturdays, to sell his catch. But in recent years, he’s had less and less to sell. He says he has financial difficulties and struggles to feed his children. “At the present time we eat breakfast in the morning, and then in the afternoon and in the evening we struggle on like this, with nothing in our stomachs. We can’t do otherwise.” he says.
Yet Kribi is renowned for its fish. Customers come from the cities of Douala, Yaoundé and Bafoussam to stock up. A decline in fishing could have dramatic consequences for the fishermen of Kribi as well as on the food security of the cities they supply.
Elong and other Kribi fishers blame their declining catches on the Port Authority of Kribi (PAK), a Cameroonian state megaproject. Built by China Harbour Engineering Company, a subsidiary of Beijing-headquartered China Communications Construction Company Ltd. (CCCC), the massive port is intended to decongest the one at Douala and become a trade hub for all Central African countries. However, since the beginning of the port’s construction, an array of environmental problems have cropped up in the area. There’s the loss of fish, and also enhanced erosion of the coastline, an influx of people putting additional pressure on the area’s mangroves and infrastructure, more pollution, and new pressures on wildlife in the nearby marine protected area, Manyange na Elombo-Campo, the only one in the country.
A decline in fishing could have dramatic consequences for the fishermen of Kribi as well as on the food security of the cities they supply. » …