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Senegal's gas plant - 9th November 2022

Senegal built a gas plant off the coast of Saint Louis. This is great news for Africa. But it's bad news for the environment.

Saint Louis is Senegal's main fishing village. Moustapha Dieng says that the gas plant will kill all the fish. Fishermen will have no work.

Moustapha Dieng: "There is a natural reef over there. This natural reef is a very hard and very old rock. They chose to put the gas platform over there so that it would be well supported. But this rock is the habitat of all the fish, many species of fish, and practically, there are more than 3,000 pirogues, the small canoes that you see, which made their living from this area."

Many countries need oil and gas. Senegal could help them.

Sophie Gladima thinks the gas plant will be good for Senegal. More people will have electricity. And there will be more jobs.

But Pape Fara Diallo is worried about the poor fishermen. They won't have any work.

Pape Fara Diallo: "We feel the concerns. We see the contrast between the billions that we are told will come from the extraction of offshore gas and the poverty that you see around you."

Fishermen will have to find a new fishing area. But they can't go too far north. It's another country, Mauritania. It's illegal for them to fish there.

Moustapha Dieng says that it's impossible to fish with the gas plant.

Moustapha Dieng: "Cohabitation is not possible. If you're extracting the gas, you are killing the fishing in Saint-Louis. Because Saint-Louis is the capital of fishing, the number of boats that there are in Saint-Louis, the types of fishing that there are in Saint-Louis, they exist nowhere else."