ABSTRACT
This chapter examines, first, the various linkages between migration and the environment in Africa and in the rest of the world. Secondly, it opens a breach on the climate variability and mobility linkages in Africa, before ending with the economies of fish eldorados in West Africa, with Senegal as a case study. The chapter tries to establish how dynamics of mobility in new fish eldorado areas in West Africa are often influenced by ecological change, overfishing, and fisheries depletion. It attempts to show the extent of the fishers’ migratory phenomena in West Africa, some of which are caused by the multiple current environmental degradations. Illegal fishing contributed to multiplying the migratory routes of Senegalese fishers to countries such as Mauritania and Guinea Bissau. Migration towards these neighboring countries, often creating situations of tension between communities, provides information on two fundamental aspects: (i) overfishing and the scarcity of fishery resources are becoming a socio-environmental reality which now impacts the lives of numerous fishers and their families; (ii) by becoming “victims” of the climate crisis, Senegalese migrant fishers are able to adapt to new living conditions that often push them to move far from their countries.
