Poachers' Paradise - Foreign Correspondent - ABC News

The oceans off the coast of West Africa once teemed with fish. Millions relied on these plentiful stocks for their livelihoods.

Now this rich resource is being plundered by foreign vessels, fishing illegally.

These large trawlers can scoop up more fish in a week than the small, local boats do in a year.

Off the north coast of Senegal, locals like Yague once made a good living catching fish.

"They used to swim up to us. We were wealthy, but ever since these many industrial vessels came, the fish started to disappear", he says.

Local fishermen, working out of small hand-crafted boats called pirogues, can't compete.

'It's a race against these industrial vessels. If they notice us, they head right for us to take our catch from us. They destroy our nets", says Yague. "They usually also ram our pirogues, so the only thing we collect at the end of the day are our destroyed pirogues."

It's a similar story up and down the coast -  Liberia, the Ivory Coast, even as far south as Gabon.

"Hundreds of years ago, European countries came to the African continent to steal people from these shores", says Captain Peter Hammarstedt from environmental group, Sea Shepherd.

"Now foreign fishing fleets have come to plunder fish."

Among the biggest offenders are Chinese-owned vessels. Captain Hammarstedt says around 800 Chinese vessels operate regularly off the coast of West Africa.

Working with European broadcaster Arte, we visit the communities whose livelihoods are under threat from these foreign trawlers. And we meet the activists helping them fight back.

In Senegal, the locals are fed up with government inaction. Fisherman Mamadou Sarr, with the help of activist group Greenpeace, is organising night-time sea patrols so they can report illegal fishing to the authorities in the hope they'll take action.

"We must be more active. If we don't do anything, there won't be any more fish in Senegal soon."

In Liberia, the army is working with Sea Shepherd to patrol the seas and detain ships fishing illegally.

"Those vessels knew that the Liberian coast guard didn't have the capability to go deep into the water, so they took advantage, and came to fish", says General George, the deputy chief of staff of the Liberian Armed Forces.

"It was time to act, because our local fishermen were going to be completely out of business."

Illegal fishing in Liberia has dropped dramatically but constant vigilance is required.

"We have to stay on top of the poaching problem. If the patrols stop, it's very likely that the illegal fishing problem comes back." Captain Hammarstedt