![]() And the volume of fish they consume is enormous. West Africa is among the world’s fastest-growing producers of it: more than fifty processing plants operate along the shores of Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and Gambia. Exported to the United States, Europe, and Asia, fish meal is used as a protein-rich supplement in the booming industry of fish farming, or aquaculture. Golden Lead and the other factories were rapidly built to meet exploding global demand for fish meal-a lucrative dark-yellow powder made by cooking and pulverizing fish. The residents of Gunjur were told that Golden Lead would bring jobs, a fish market, and a newly paved three-mile road through the heart of town. In 2017, China cancelled fourteen million dollars in Gambian debt and invested thirty-three million to develop agriculture and fisheries, including Golden Lead and two other fish-processing plants along the fifty-mile Gambian coast. As part of the initiative, China has become the largest foreign financier of infrastructure development in Africa, cornering the market on most of the continent’s road, pipeline, power-plant, and port projects. Golden Lead (pronounced “leed”) is one outpost of an ambitious Chinese economic and geopolitical agenda known as the Belt and Road Initiative, which the Chinese government has said is meant to build good will abroad, boost economic coöperation, and provide otherwise inaccessible development opportunities to poorer nations. By then, it wasn’t just the lagoon that had been transformed the coastal waters had also turned a reddish brown. When I reached him last month, Manjang had relocated to Gunjur to take a teaching job at the local university. That summer, Gambian environmental authorities filed a lawsuit against the plant, and reportedly reached a settlement for twenty-five thousand dollars, an amount that Manjang described as “paltry and offensive.” The plant’s license was briefly revoked, but operations soon started back up. Pollution at these levels, Manjang concluded, could have only one source: illegally dumped waste from a Chinese fish-processing plant called Golden Lead, which operates on the edge of the reserve. The water contained double the amount of arsenic and forty times the amount of phosphates and nitrates deemed safe. He happened to be home visiting his extended family, and he collected his own samples from the lagoon, sending them to two laboratories in Germany for analysis. Born and raised in Gunjur, Manjang was living in Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a microbiologist. Soon, there were reports that many of the area’s birds were no longer nesting near the lagoon.Ī few residents filled bottles with the tainted water and brought them to the one person in town they thought might be able to help-Ahmed Manjang. ![]() More likely, water fleas in the lagoon had turned red in response to sudden changes in pH or oxygen levels. ![]() “Everything is red,” one local reporter wrote, “and every living thing is dead.” Some residents wondered if the apocalyptic scene was an omen delivered in blood. A marvel of biodiversity, the reserve was integral to the region’s ecological health-and, with hundreds of birders and other tourists visiting each year, to its economic health, too.īut on the morning of May 22nd the Gunjur community woke to discover that the Bolong Fenyo lagoon had turned a cloudy crimson overnight. A half mile long and a few hundred yards wide, the lagoon had been a lush habitat for a remarkable variety of migratory birds, as well as humpback dolphins, epauletted fruit bats, Nile crocodiles, and callithrix monkeys. Established in 2008, the reserve was meant to protect seven hundred and ninety acres of beach, mangrove swamp, wetland, and savanna, as well as an oblong lagoon. There were drumming and kora lessons men with oiled chests grappled in traditional wrestling matches.īut just five minutes inland was a more tranquil setting-the wildlife reserve known as Bolong Fenyo. At nightfall, the beach was dotted with bonfires. Small boys played soccer as tourists watched from lounge chairs. ![]() ![]() The fish were hauled off to nearby open-air markets in rusty metal wheelbarrows or in baskets balanced on heads. Fishermen steered long, vibrantly painted wooden canoes, known as pirogues, toward the shore, where they transferred their still-fluttering catch to women waiting at the water’s edge. In the spring of 2017, the town’s white-sand beaches were full of activity. Gunjur, a town of some fifteen thousand people, sits on the Atlantic coastline of southern Gambia, the smallest country in mainland Africa. ![]()
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