Artisanal fishermen in Cameroon’s Douala-Edéa National Park are decrying Chinese trawlers that destroy their fishing gear, fish in prohibited zones, and use illicit nets and chemicals to catch fish.

A fisherman in Mbiako, a fishing town of about 3,000 people along the Sanaga River basin, said three local fishermen were shot in 2024 amid confrontations with the industrial trawlers, which access the park from the Gulf of Guinea via the Sanaga River. They fish on Lake Tissongo and in the park’s mangrove swamps and coastal waters.

“The trawlers’ army pursues us with guns at sea,” the fisherman anonymously told the Global Voices news outlet. “Occasionally, they spot us and purposefully destroy and cut our nets with the catch. They shoot if we chase them to retrieve the nets.”

These practices

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