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[Music]
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Paradise Beach once known for its golden
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sand and clear waters has become a dead
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zone with millions of rotting fish
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[Music]
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nobody in their lifetime we ask the
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elderly people nobody saw it and they
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believe in these Supernatural things so
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they said yeah but Omen exactly
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crabs face everything was completed
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there even all the plants surrounding
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that place are all done red they all
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died and the water there's no limit in
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that water
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locals have been quick to link these
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apocalyptic scenes to the Chinese
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factories now dotting these Shores
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these fish meal plants promise
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employment infrastructure and a
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potential solution to a global food
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supply crisis but at what cost
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foreign
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two-thirds of the planet is covered by
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water it's our planet's wildest Frontier
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breathtaking as much as it is vital to
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all life
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a place of Discovery and endless
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reinvention
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a metaphor for Freedom as well as a
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profoundly dystopian realm where the
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darkest of all Humanities play out
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over 50 million people work at Sea and
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human rights and environmental abuses
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often occur with impunity
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so hot
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never ever seen this bad
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my name is Ian urbina
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as a journalist I've spent the past
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decade reporting from this Lawless
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Frontier
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I run an investigative journalism
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organization called The Outlaw ocean
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project that reports about crimes
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happening in this space
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[Music]
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this is the outlaw ocean
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foreign
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500 kilometer Coastline of West Africa
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is home to some of the most diverse
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Waters in the world
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it's also economically vital to the
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region
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more than 7 million people from
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Mauritania to Liberia rely on fishing
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for their livelihoods for centuries
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artisanal fishermen worked in tandem
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with Nature's rhythms abundant fish
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maintained healthy local Fisheries then
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industrial fishing by foreigners began
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we have to start perhaps in
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1880 when the Brits deployed the first
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steam trollers and they emptied around
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the British Isles the talks of fish that
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had accumulated over centuries in a
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decade or so and they had to fish
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further offshore and basically that
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phenomenon
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reproduce itself in every country of the
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world
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the biomass the amount of fish in the
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Universe has declined we have wiped out
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90 of the big fish and that that is very
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hard for people to conceive
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[Music]
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with the depletion of at Sea Starks a
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hopeful solution emerged fish farming on
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land
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[Music]
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aquaculture is often framed as both
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sustainable and a scalable way to feed
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the world but there is a catch industry
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routinely chooses to feed powdered wild
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fish to their farmed fish in order to
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fatten them up and sell them faster fish
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meal is a very inefficient food source
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that actually worsens depletion of ocean
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fish stocks rather than slowing it
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fish meal is a product that you get out
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of fish that little fish they are ground
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up they are not treated like fish in for
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human consumption and they are put in
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grinding machine and they are then dried
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is in a reduction plant and then you get
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powder
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foreign
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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with Relentless demand from China
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pushing fish meal prices to record highs
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companies have set their sights on West
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Africa as a new source of supply
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Gambia is the target
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stocks are still relatively robust
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compared to the rest of the oceans it's
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one of the world's poorest nations with
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the least monitored National Waters
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my team and I joined local journalists
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Mustafa Mane who has spent years
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investigating the impact of 14 fish meal
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factories that have popped up in Gambia
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and neighboring countries
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uh where are we right now we're at uh
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just close to the Bollywood Factory do
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you think it's safe for me to try and
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sneak some shots with this phone it's
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worth it it's really risky because you
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can be attacked you can be assaulted
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they are very aggressive because they
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don't compromise okay
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should we put the cameras away or come
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at us put the camera down
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not only does the industry create food
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security issues but it also destroys
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local tourism with rancid smelling
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emissions and pollutes local Waters as
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the factories dump toxic waste
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[Music]
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a local TV crew filmed images of the
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process
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but what was deeply concerning and not
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exposed were the levels of chemicals the
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factory used to turn fish to dust
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the effects on the environment were
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catastrophic
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water has turned red and the fumes were
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toxic
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microbiologist Ahmed manjong analyzed
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the water and found it contained double
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the amount of Arsenic and 40 times the
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amount of phosphates and nitrates deemed
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safe
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locals destroyed a pipe that was pumping
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waste into the ocean
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activists were arrested but the pipe was
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restored
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[Music]
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why do you think they can get away with
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operating Above the Law because Gambia
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is in serious political Deck with China
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[Music]
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okay
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hello what's going on you good
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I went to monjong's home he's the
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microbiologist who had tested the toxic
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Waters he's also now a leader in the
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opposition to the factories
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they lost control of the average
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this meal are taking the protein
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away from our dinner tables so what's
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that going to happen we're going to have
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a malnouris Invasion anyway we are
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taking the natural one giving it to the
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Chinese they convert it into powder send
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it to China feed the fish chip and bring
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it to together
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at an expensive price the the Bunga fees
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we we see now will disappear and that
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will be a disaster for this community
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[Music]
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the ocean conservation group Sea
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Shepherd began to patrol gambian Waters
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to help the local Coast Guard I was
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invited on board
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ran at it got there and suddenly it's
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the vessel that we were most interested
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in because it's connected to this really
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sketchy fish meal plant online
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foreign
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this is a vessel that like had its
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transponder off so it was already a dark
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vessel
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but even worse
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it had no fish log
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the fishing vessel's got to have a
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navigation log which is their positions
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every day where they fish the quantity
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of fish you can see the last entry here
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was on the 21st of January
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and then there is nothing then which is
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a this is a dark ship who knows where
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they fished
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he's saying that he's saying that they
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can't start going to Ben Juliet he needs
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two hours to make some repairs I've seen
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the boat ring all morning and see if
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it's a delay attacking okay
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the captain of the ship was not
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particularly cooperative and the Sea
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Shepherd crew and the gambian fishery
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and Navy officers told him he was under
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arrest and ordered him to bring his ship
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into port
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[Music]
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and then the second vessel was ten times
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worse
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and there was this space it was like a
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crawl space where all these guys were
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sleeping at night
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very close here but what the water still
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is coming
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[Music]
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things rattle me these days but but for
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some reason
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that space really rattled
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[Music]
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the local fishermen
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he also testified that these guys have
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been crawling very very close to the
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show on top of that the living
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conditions there are really not for
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humans
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before animals but not for you
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[Music]
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we saw how rules were broken with
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impunity to meet government imposed
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quotas but also how these trawlers
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fished well beyond demand of the fish
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meal factories leading to massive
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discarding of dead fish back into the
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ocean
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the over catch is left to rot in the
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waters or on the beaches like in Gambia
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we Harvest fish the same way that is
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similar to using bulldozers to catch
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rabbits and if you use bulldozer to
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catch rabbit you you will have no Forest
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our use of aquaculture is ironically
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accelerating the very problem we set out
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to solve
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rather than slowing the depletion of
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fish stocks aquaculture is speeding it
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up because of fish meal and ultimately
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it is the poor and our oceans that
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continue to pay the price for our
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ferocious appetite
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I will run and come back but I will
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never stay away because I believe one
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thing that is if government is destroyed
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it's destroyed for us and the Gambia is
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made is made for us and I always ask
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myself one person that is what is going
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to be my answer if my children or my
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grandchildren happen to ask me what way
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are you doing when all this
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environmental distance is happening I
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always want us to have the answer and
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that's the main reason that's why I keep
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speaking to people I keep doing what I
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should do I keep wasting the awareness
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level of people because awareness reason
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is key
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[Music]