Populations of sardinella, an important protein-rich fish, are in rapid decline in the waters off Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. The decline appears to be related to industrial fishing for two species of sardinella used to make fishmeal, according to a report by investigative news organization OCCRP. In Guinea-Bissau, fish like the Madeiran sardinella (Sardinella maderensis) and round sardinella (Sardinella aurita) are among the primary ingredients in fishmeal, a processed fish product added to livestock feed for added protein and nutrients. But sardinella is also a crucial food for people in Guinea-Bissau and other West African nations. A fisheries assessment for the Guinea-Bissau government showed sardinella stocks have been decimated, according to the OCCRP report. This decline coincided with the arrival two Chinese fishmeal factories and a fleet of Turkish fishing boats off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. In an email to Mongabay, OCCRP report co-author Josef Skrdlik said the migration patterns of sardinella still aren’t fully understood, so there could be other explanations for the decline. “That said, the assessment, combined with the export data we’ve compiled, points to the Chinese-owned factory ships as the main culprits,” Skrdlik said. “The export data indicates that the production on the ships — supplied by a Turkish fleet for which sardinella was a key target — took place at a scale consistent with the decline in the sardinella stocks observed between 2013 and 2025,” he added. “In particular, fishmeal exports by a company linked to the floating factories corresponded to at least 350,000 tons…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Several years of severe drought are forcing people to leave their homes in Angola to search for water and food in neighboring Namibia. “There is real hunger and thirst here; that’s why the village has become depopulated,” Nghikembua (not his real name), who lives in Cunene Province in southern Angola, told Amnesty International in 2021. Nghikembua said nearly all the able-bodied people of his village have left, leaving behind only the elderly, like himself, “Those who still had some strength left felt forced to leave the village for Namibia.” More than 1.8 million people live in Cunene and nearly 75% of the population is rural and depends on pastoralism and subsistence farming. “Southern Angola has experienced repeated severe droughts, extreme heat and environmental degradation for quite a number of years, leaving families without water, crops, or livestock,” said Victor Nyamori, an Amnesty International researcher and migration lawyer who collected the testimonies for the recently published report featuring Nghikembua. Approximately 30% of the area has been degraded by desertification, according to the Amnesty International report, leaving many subsistence communities without livelihoods. “Namibia has also suffered from drought, but the state has responded much better and has put solutions in place to prevent the population from falling into food insecurity and to ensure access to water,” Nyamori told Mongabay in a phone call. Between 2023 and 2024, a strong El Niño event brought the most severe drought in more than a century to the region. Namibia responded to the drought by expanding…This article was originally published on Mongabay