- On Jan. 29, the government of Guinea-Bissau issued a flat ban on fish meal production, citing threats to marine ecosystems and food security.
- In recent years, as West African coastal nations — most notably Mauritania — increasingly clamped down on the industry, Guinea-Bissau emerged as a new regional fish meal hub.
- The first Chinese-owned fish meal factory vessel arrived in its waters in October 2019, followed by a second one in May 2024; both were supplied by Turkish-flagged industrial purse seiners that had previously fished for fish meal factories in Mauritania.
- The production also expanded on shore: In April 2025, Guinea-Bissau’s then-president inaugurated a fish meal plant, and as of February 2026, at least one other facility was under construction.
BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau — This small West African nation, whose mangrove-fringed coastal waters and expansive estuaries are important spawning grounds for fish species that migrate along the West African coast, long appeared to have little do with fish meal production, an activity that was booming in other parts of the region.
Yet, even though satellite imagery showed no recognizable fish meal plants, fish meal of Guinea-Bissau origin was being advertised for sale online.
Then, on Jan. 29, the country’s transitional government, installed in the aftermath of the November 2025 coup, issued an all-out ban on fish meal production with immediate effect, saying that “the production of fish meal and fish oil has been proliferating in the country.”
Interviews with officials, operators involved in the sector and drone imagery, combined with the analysis of marine traffic data, show that fish meal was being produced in Guinea Bissau. Most of it was not on land but at sea.
The extent of the operations’ legality remains unclear, but records seen by Mongabay show that vessels operating the offshore factories were licensed by the ministry of fisheries and as of 2025, at least one of them was authorized to produce fish meal.
According to data from Global Fishing Watch, a U.S.-based NGO that publicly tracks fishing activity, the 147 meters (482 feet) long vessel Tian Yi He 6 entered Guinea-Bissau’s waters in October 2019 and was followed by Hua Xin 17, a 125 m (410 ft) long vessel, in May 2024.
The Jan. 29 order specifically banned “the production of fish meal and fish oil, whether by vessels in fishing zones or by land-based facilities,” citing a surge in production “either through industrial units built in different localities on land, or through factory vessels operating in fishing zones or in areas designated for related fishing operations.” The order did not specifically name Tian Yi He 6 or Hua Xin 17.
Drone footage of Tian Yi He 6 and Hua Xin 17 taken by Mongabay, showing conveyor belts, chimneys and apparent fish oil storage tanks, indicate that these are being used as fish meal processing plants.
According to the order, these operations posed a danger to “small pelagic species as well as the surrounding ecosystem.”
The two vessels were anchored, on a semipermanent basis, in an area just about 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the Bijagós Archipelago, a biodiversity hotspot designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, which features intact mudflats, sandbanks and dense mangrove forests.
The group of 88 islands and islets is home to manatees, dolphins, sharks and rays and serves as a critical nesting site for endangered green (Chelonia mydas) and leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea). It is also a key wintering ground for migratory shorebirds.
Fish meal production in the country appears to be dominated by Chinese interests. The Guinea-Bissau ministry of fisheries’ records reviewed by Mongabay show that Tian Yi He 6 is operated by Shanghai Pesca SARL and Hua Xin 17 by Global Fisher SARL, both registered in Guinea-Bissau.
However, Global Fisher is owned by a Chinese national, as per a corporate registry record seen by Mongabay. According to sources in the fisheries ministry, Shanghai Pesca is also Chinese-owned. However, Mongabay was not able to independently confirm this.
The records also show that the two companies in recent years contracted at least six Turkish-flagged industrial purse seiners. Industrial purse seining, using expansive nets to encircle and capture entire schools of fish, allows for maximizing catch volumes, thus ensuring continuous and low-cost supplies of the biomass needed to sustain fish meal operations.
All six purse seiners, which arrived in Guinea-Bissau between November 2019 and September 2024, had previously operated in Nouadhibou in Mauritania — once the epicenter of West Africa’s fish meal industry, before the country began introducing stricter regulations governing the sector in 2021.
The January directive also suspended licenses of all purse seine vessels supplying the factory ships and banned supplies of land-based facilities by artisanal vessels.
“Scientific evidence indicates that the main small pelagic stocks in Guinea-Bissau are under strong pressure, that is, in a worrying state — in particular sardinellas [Sardinella aurita and S. maderensis],” Cadija Djaló, a marine researcher at INIPO, an oceanographic and marine research institute affiliated with the Guinea-Bissau ministry of fisheries, told Mongabay.
In a written response to Mongabay, Guinea-Bissau’s director of industrial fishing, Amadú Djaló (who is not related to Cadija Djaló), said the decision to ban fish meal was taken following a presentation by the minister of fisheries to the Council of Ministers “concerning the harmful effects of producing flour and oil through fish intended for human consumption, especially for the disadvantaged population.”
The letter said the decision was “also associated with the result of the resource assessment campaign (small pelagics), carried out within the framework of a fisheries cooperation agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, in February 2025.” It specified that the assessment indicated “a considerable decline in small pelagics in recent years due to fish meal and fish oil production activities.”
Djaló, the researcher from INIPO, explained that licenses for industrial purse seiners were suspended because “this method exerts strong pressure on small pelagic stocks, which are considered particularly vulnerable to overexploitation.”
The ban came after land-based fish meal plants also started to spring up in the country. In April 2025, then-President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, deposed in the recent coup just before the announcement of the presidential election results, inaugurated a Chinese-owned fish meal factory with much fanfare in the vicinity of Suro, a village about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital Bissau. As of February 2026, at least one other fish meal plant in the same area was under construction.
The ships, Tian Yi He 6 and Hua Xin 17, were anchored near the port of Bissau, as of Feb. 27.
Banner image: The vessels Hua Xin 17 and Tian Yi He 6 anchored on the Geba River near the capital of Bissau. Image by Josef Skrdlik for Mongabay.
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