YOFF, Senegal: The prow of his pirogue slicing through the glistening waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Maketdiaye makes his way back to shore to sell his catch 10 small black tuna fish.

He has spent seven hours at sea, searching the exhausted waters off the West African coast of Senegal for fish.

"There are fewer and fewer fish every day," he said, as women and children helped push his brightly coloured wooden boat onto the beach at Yoff, on the outskirts of the capital Dakar.

"Before, I could bring back up to 100 fish in one catch. Today the maximum is 40 and even that's rare. I have to go really far out to get that," said the fisherman, who identified himself simply as Maketdiaye.

Once abundant, the shoals off the West African coastline have been shrinking since foreign trawlers entered the waters in the 1960s.

Depleted stocks are being further strained as more local fishermen take to the seas, partly because of a lack of fishing restrictions, partly because there are few sources of alternative employment in the poor country.

There are 60,000 fishermen in Senegal, a former French colony which earns its foreign exchange mainly from tourism, peanuts and fishing.

The overall catch from Senegalese waters fell to 374,000 tonnes in 2002 from 453,000 tonnes in 1997. The quantity of commercially valuable fish has fallen by more than 80 per cent since the 1950s, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

"There are too many fishermen and not enough fish," said Paul Siegel, an adviser at WWF's West African Marine Conservation office in Senegal.

"Each fisherman adds his weight, but it is difficult to put the blame on just one factor."

Blame game

Blessed with more than 500 kilometres of coastline, fishing is not only a key part of Senegal's economy, accounting for a third of export revenues, but also a way of life.

More than 600,000 men and women depend on fishing and related industries in a country of 11 million, where fish and rice is the main dish.

In villages like Yoff, fishing is passed on from father to son among descendants of the Lebou tribe of fishermen, who inhabited the peninsula of Dakar long before the capital moved from the northern town of Saint Louis.

Today, the swelling ranks of Senegalese fishermen use outboard motors and nets and account for 80 per cent of total tonnage caught.

Nonetheless, fishermen from Yoff blame foreign trawlers, now mainly from Europe and previously from Russia and Asia, for their difficulties, accusing them of hauling in immature fish that are of no commercial value but which are important for the small-scale local fishermen.

"They come into our waters and take all the fish. Before we had loads of fish," said Ndiaye Thioum, 58.

But the small-scale, also known as artisanal, fishermen are not without blame. Like the trawlers, some keep smaller fry instead of throwing them back while others use dynamite instead of nets.

"The artisanal fishing sector is not regulated, anyone can go fishing without any respect," said Moustapha Thiam, deputy director of fisheries at the ministry for maritime economy.

Source: China Daily