BY: MOHAMED SAHR
In the bid of highlighting the country’s unprecedented triple down issues faced over the years for both the artisanal fishers and the industrial fishing vessels coupled with ripple environmental implications through cinematography, Freetown Media Center has held its maiden Sierra Leone Environment Film Summit with the official premiering of a film titled “New Boats” on Friday 31st March 2023 at the Freetown City Council Auditorium.
Lansana Mansaray, Director and Filmmaker at the Freetown Media Centre said the inspiration behind the summit as well as the launching of the new film was clipped on the numerous social problems faced with Sierra Leoneans living along the coast such as illegal fishing, fish scarcity, illegal migration among others.
He stated that the restricting of Sierra Leone fishes into the European market has worsened the situation and posed lots of challenges to the local fishermen and fishmongers in the country.
Mansaray emphasized that there are a number of illegal activities done by the foreign vessels especially at night; adding that their activities have caused a complete depletion to the environment. “The Yellow Card ban was placed because we do not have the adequate processing facility that is required for us to sale our fishes to the European market,” Director Mansaray said.
He furthered that despite being yellow carded by the European Union, there have been companies in Sierra Leone who are smuggling the fishes in the country with the pretext of bringing them from Ghana, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
Director Mansaray affirmed that there have been tremendous efforts from the government of Sierra Leone and Non-Governmental Organizations to ameliorate the situation but, all of these efforts have proved ineffective. He stated that there are loads of benefits behind the sales of Sierra Leonean fishes to the International market which range from improving of livelihoods, boosting of the economy generally and in coastal communities.
He believed that the film summit would bring out meaningful decisions as to how to make the environment eco-friendly and apply a conscious surveillance of the sea as well as the land.
Adenike Hamilton, Impact Producer of the film titled “New Boats” said the summit gears towards discussing critical issues affecting the coastal communities and the ripple effects being caused. She mentioned that they want stakeholders to create an enabling atmosphere in order to get over these problems.
Hamilton noted that scarcity of fish in recent times has led to loss of livelihoods, forceful migration of fishermen and vulnerability of women. “We want to put a visual representation of the things that are happening for people to see,” Adenike said.
She hoped that they would cascade the film into the local languages of various communities as a way of portraying these issues by educating and informing the local people.
Authur Pratt, Producer of the “New Boats” said the film summit serves as a record breaking event which showcases environmental issues limping the nation as a whole. He disclosed that cinema is used to provoke the problems affecting communities and proffering social solutions to them.
Lahai Kpaka, Public Relations Officer for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change thanked the organizers of the summit for staging the event in an orderly fashion. He said the cutting down of the mangroves for human consumption has posed a lot of challenges to the settlers in the coastal communities. “This activity has led to the shortage of fish and rapidly diminished the country’s economy,” PRO Kpaka said.
He urged Sierra Leoneans to be the agent of change by keeping the environment safe and stop the depletion of the environment as a result of human activities such as poaching of animals, cutting down of trees, disposing of waste materials and pollution of both the air and sea.