- A new fishing port slated for completion in June will bring huge commercial vessels into the artisanal fishing community of Shimoni, Kenya.
- Local fishers fear that once the new port comes online, their fishing will become impossible in the near-shore waters they have fished for ages, and the huge vessels will disrupt local seafood markets.
- In 2023, President William Ruto promised to equip the local fishers with boats capable of fishing in the deep sea, but more than a year later, this promise has yet to be fulfilled, and local fishers say that boats the county delivered aren’t up to the task.
- Moreover, they say training will be essential to operate any deep-sea fishing vessels, along with mechanical support, and they worry they won’t be able to afford the upkeep costs.
This is Mongabay’s second story in a short series about the new Shimoni Fish Port. Read the first story here.
SHIMONI, Kenya — On a drizzly March afternoon, more than two dozen vessels bobbed on moorings near the jetty or lay along the beach in the Kenyan village of Shimoni. There were motor-boats, dugout canoes, wooden sailboats and open dhows, all used for fishing or transporting people and goods in the shallows near the coast. Fishers traded their catch, obtained by various artisanal methods, including basket traps, handlines, longlines and even diving. Trucks reversed onto the old jetty to load the fish for transport out of Shimoni.
Nearby, heavy machinery was hard at work as the government rushed to complete the new Shimoni Fish Port, reported to cost 2.6 billion Kenyan shillings ($20 million) and slated for completion in June. Huge warehouse-size buildings with blue roofs had sprung up, a new jetty was almost complete and an access road to the port was being paved.
According to the project’s environmental impact assessment report, the new jetty will “allow the berthing of large fishing vessels such as purse seiners.” These vessels range in length between 45 and 85 meters (147-279 feet) and sometimes as long as 110 m (360 ft), according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. One such large vessel could be 100 times the size of a canoe.
Ali Issa and Badudu Ramadhani had just finished a meeting with a few members of their Shimoni Beach Management Unit (BMU), a community group of fishers and others in related trades charged with sustainably managing local fisheries in collaboration with the government. The wide glass window of the BMU office near the new port opens to the sea. Issa stood from his chair and pointed at a white fiberglass boat bobbing in the waves. It was a few months old, had no cabin and was just a few meters longer than the other boats moored by the jetty.
“That is it. We have three of those here. Do you think that boat can go to the deep sea?” asked Issa, a smirk on his face.
Speaking while attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Shimoni port in November 2023, President William Ruto had promised to equip the local fishers with boats capable of fishing in the deep sea. “We are planning to help you with fishing boats and we have found 10 of them and we will be bringing them to you this December. This will enable you to fish further into the sea because I know you are using canoes which are limited in their reach,” he said.
More than a year later, this promise has yet to be fulfilled. Now, if Wasini Channel just off Shimoni is dredged to allow large ships, and with ship traffic set to increase when the port opens, local fishers fear that fishing will become impossible in the waters they have fished in for ages. Dredging could reduce the number of fish by destroying their breeding sites; fishing with traditional gear won’t work in a deeper seabed; and increased turbidity will make it difficult to use nets, as happened in the town of Lamu after dredging for the new port there.
Roman Sherah, the county executive committee member for agriculture, livestock and fisheries in the government of Kwale county, told Mongabay that the county had issued deep-sea-worthy fishing boats to the fishers in Kwale, to help them take advantage of the new Shimoni port. These included the Shimoni BMU’s three new boats. “The County Government of Kwale has provided modern fully equipped off-shore fishing boats to the community, allowing fishermen to venture further into the sea,” Sherah told Mongabay via email. “A total of 59 boats have been supplied to fishermen.”
He added that with support from the World Bank, the county intends to support fishers with five bigger boats to facilitate deep-sea fishing. “These initiatives aim to enhance local fishers’ capacity to explore deeper waters and sustain their livelihoods,” he said. He did not respond to Mongabay’s question about the size or features of these five additional boats, and neither he nor the national government responded to questions about its pledge to deliver boats of its own.
However, the boats the Shimoni BMU received so far were about the same size as those the local fishers already own and, Issa said, do not have the capacity to go to the deep sea.
Residents of Shimoni still have hope that President Ruto’s promise will be fulfilled, that the national government has plans beyond the county government’s to enable fishers to fish in the deep sea once the port starts operation. But given a lack of communication by the government, confusion persists about what will happen.
Rashid Mohamed Rashid, the village chairman of Wasini Island across the channel from the port, has been a fisherman all his adult life. He fishes using nets and traditional basket traps, and since his dugout canoe was washed away by waves a month earlier, he dives to set his gear. Rashid told Mongabay he’d gladly try his hand at deep-sea fishing. But he agreed with Issa’s assessment that no boat in area has the capacity to do so — including the ones so far supplied by the county. Instead, he’s convinced that either the president or the county government-World Bank project will come through with an appropriate boat.
Nonetheless, Rashid expressed concern that the area’s artisanal fishers may not be able to sustain such boats, as they are costly. “My main issue is that they have taken us from a very low level to a high level, which is OK. To operate the boat, you need fuel and someone to maintain it regularly, and if the catch is low, we may not be able to operate it,” he said.
The Shimoni BMU has been sharing the three boats from the county among its members, and they expect to get more, Issa said. They use the boats in turns. Three fishers go out to sea together and share the proceeds from their catch. When they return, another group takes a turn.
While these small boats have been helpful to the fishers who use them, once the port is operational and the inshore fishing ground no longer fishable, they won’t offer any benefit because they can’t be taken very far offshore, according to Issa and Ramadhani.
If the big deep-sea fishing boats do materialize, Issa and Ramadhani said the training the president also promised in his tours along the coast will be essential. “If they give us the boats, they should also train our youth and give us a trainer to be in the boats for a month or two in the beginning to teach the youth in the deep-sea fishing,” Ramadhani said.
If the government delivers, Abdalla Bakari, a fish trader from the BMU in Kibuyuni, the village just south of Shimoni, told Mongabay he’s sure locals have the capacity to operate the boats and fish in the deep sea. In 2022, the government, through the Kenya Maritime Authority in partnership with Kenya Commercial Bank, sponsored training in maritime careers for 600 youth from coastal counties. Some of the youth came from Kibuyuni and Shimoni. Because of this training, Bakari said he is confident in the local know-how.
But he said he was worried that members of his BMU would be left out; up to now, they haven’t been involved in any process to receive the big boats. “We haven’t seen anything, no documents and no procedures ever since the president came here to promise us,” he said.
Among the Kibuyuni BMU members are the 200-plus members of the Kibuyuni Seaweed Farmers’ Cooperative Fatuma Mohamed, a founding member of the co-op, confirmed the lack of information about the promised boats.
Most of the co-op’s members are women, and Mohamed said that even if these boats are issued, women will be left out, on top of not being able to farm seaweed again if the new ship route edges out their farms. “My question is if the men are going to be out at sea for up to 30 days, then what will the women be doing? Have their needs been addressed? Some of these women are single mothers, others are young and they depend on the shallow waters for their livelihood. I don’t know if they thought of this,” she said.
Some Shimoni residents said that instead of the boats, adequate compensation would suffice. Issa said he’d rather receive enough money to start fresh elsewhere because he believes the port will put an end to his life as a fisher. Even if local fishers receive deep-sea boats, the huge industrial ships coming into the new port loaded with fish will disrupt the local market and deny them a livelihood, he said.
“It is no longer tenable here,” Issa said. “If everyone is paid enough to buy a piece of land elsewhere and start a business or farming, that would be even more beneficial.”
Banner image: Rashid Mohamed Rashid, a fisher from Wasini Island, says his catches have declined since construction of the port began. Image by Anthony Langat for Mongabay.
As a fishing port rises in Kenya, locals see threats to sea life, livelihoods
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