Mustapha Manneh, CEO of “Their Voice Must Be Heard”, a Kartong based youth organisation has attended the Greenpeace International Annual General Meeting in Dakar, Senegal. 

The meeting with the theme: "China - Africa relations and impact on environment work and activism" was organised by Greenpeace International which was the first ever meeting to be held on African soil.

Mustapha Manneh with Greenpeace official at the Dakar meeting

Mustapha was invited to attend the meeting on the recommendation of Africa Rising, a continent wide movement aimed at uplifting Pan-Africanism at grassroots level. Speaking to GunjurNewsOnline about the meeting and what he hopes to benefit from attending such a high profile gathering, Mr Manneh had this to say: “ My participation will indeed have great impact on our fight against Chinese bad investors who are involved in Fish meal processing in The Gambia without giving any regards to our environment. I met high profile and well experienced people here during the AGM who work on China-Africa investment and they know a lot about Fish meal. Am equipped with new knowledge on Fish meal factory and in general China business issues.” Muspaha who presented a paper on “Africa-China relationship and how that's affecting Gambia” spoke about Fish meal factories in Kartong, Gunjur and Sanyang and how that's affecting the communities socially, economically and environmentally. For instance, Mr Manneh indicates that socially, the communities are divided because of the Fish meal factories. The youths are seen by elders as anti development while the youths also see elders as betrayers in the fight against environmental pollution. Economically, we are down as the price of fish rapidly increases in the markets for the local buyers. The fishermen sell fish to the local buyers at a higher price than to the Chinese Fish meal factories because the factory buys in large quantities. Environmentally we are polluted. Our environment is already damaged due to the waste from the factories. Mustapha also spoke on the effects of over fishing as a result of the presence of the Chinese owned Fish meal plants which need large quantities of the pelagic “bonga” fish to produce Fish meal and fish oil. He further talked about the possible ways Greenpeace International can support the campaign in the fight against the possible depletion of Gambia’s fish stock and other environmental degradation as a result of the proliferation of fish meal processing companies in The Gambia.

Editor’s note

Mustapha Manneh is the CEO of “Their Voice Must Be Heard”, a grassroots organisation engaged in protecting and safeguarding human rights as well as advocating for the protection of environment. The organisation also supports the vulnerable and underprivileged people in the communities.