Pirate Fishing

People & Power takes to the seas off Sierra Leone to investigate the multi-million dollar illegal fishing trade.

The precious marine resources of some of the world's poorest people are being targeted by industrial-scale pirate fishing operations, to feed the seafood hungry markets of Europe and Asia.

The problem is particularly acute in West African waters where fish is a vital - and often the only - protein source for millions of people.

In a special two-part investigation, People & Power set out in 2012, to identify and expose some of those involved in the multi-million dollar trade and to look in particular at its consequences for the impoverished West African nation of Sierra Leone. More than two years later, in 2014, the problems are still the same, and now Al Jazeera is re-airing the investigations.

In part one of Pirate Fishing, reporter Juliana Ruhfus and producer Orlando von Einsiedel take to the seas off Sierra Leone with an NGO, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), which has been trying to raise awareness about the issue

.