12/27/2023 0 Comments Factory town fish![]() Pollution at these levels, Manjang concluded, could have only one source: illegally dumped waste from a Chinese fish-processing plant called Golden Lead, which operates on the edge of the reserve. The water contained double the amount of arsenic and forty times the amount of phosphates and nitrates deemed safe. ![]() He happened to be home visiting his extended family, and he collected his own samples from the lagoon, sending them to two laboratories in Germany for analysis. Born and raised in Gunjur, Manjang was living in Saudi Arabia, where he worked as a microbiologist. Soon, there were reports that many of the area’s birds were no longer nesting near the lagoon.Ī few residents filled bottles with the tainted water and brought them to the one person in town they thought might be able to help-Ahmed Manjang. More likely, water fleas in the lagoon had turned red in response to sudden changes in pH or oxygen levels. “Everything is red,” one local reporter wrote, “and every living thing is dead.” Some residents wondered if the apocalyptic scene was an omen delivered in blood. A marvel of biodiversity, the reserve was integral to the region’s ecological health-and, with hundreds of birders and other tourists visiting each year, to its economic health, too.īut on the morning of May 22nd the Gunjur community woke to discover that the Bolong Fenyo lagoon had turned a cloudy crimson overnight. ![]() A half mile long and a few hundred yards wide, the lagoon had been a lush habitat for a remarkable variety of migratory birds, as well as humpback dolphins, epauletted fruit bats, Nile crocodiles, and callithrix monkeys. Established in 2008, the reserve was meant to protect seven hundred and ninety acres of beach, mangrove swamp, wetland, and savanna, as well as an oblong lagoon. There were drumming and kora lessons men with oiled chests grappled in traditional wrestling matches.īut just five minutes inland was a more tranquil setting-the wildlife reserve known as Bolong Fenyo. At nightfall, the beach was dotted with bonfires. Small boys played soccer as tourists watched from lounge chairs. The fish were hauled off to nearby open-air markets in rusty metal wheelbarrows or in baskets balanced on heads. Fishermen steered long, vibrantly painted wooden canoes, known as pirogues, toward the shore, where they transferred their still-fluttering catch to women waiting at the water’s edge. In the spring of 2017, the town’s white-sand beaches were full of activity. Many of the original industrial buildings are now entirely given over to artists’ and rehearsal studios, exhibition and performance spaces, and bars, while vibrant street art provides a new graphic overlay on some of the original buildings.Įxplore past and present uses of Fish Island's historic buildings with our interactive map.Gunjur, a town of some fifteen thousand people, sits on the Atlantic coastline of southern Gambia, the smallest country in mainland Africa. In 2009 over 600 creative businesses were counted here, including fashion and jewellery designers, photographers, graphic designers, musicians, film-makers and fine artists. ![]() Over the next 30 years, Hackney Wick became one of Europe’s most densely populated creative areas. But as one door closed, another opened, and in the 1980s the area’s relative affordability began to attract artists and designers. Factories, pubs, schools and streets emptied, and vast warehouses were thrown up as distribution centres for products made outside the UK. Hackney Wick and Fish Island’s boom years came to an end during Britain’s industrial decline in the 1960s, when it turned from a vibrant and populous place of production to a venue for waste disposal and recycling, storage and distribution. Fish Island also provided London’s burgeoning retail scene with an array of novelties, delights and conveniences including die-cast toy cars, chocolates, sweeties and waterproof clothing. The area became a centre of oil and tar processing, which in turn attracted industries including printing and dry cleaning. But it was to be another 100 years before the area was in full industrial bloom, a condition bought about by the arrival of the Hertford Union Canal in 1830 and the railway in 1851. The first factory was a silk mill established in the sleepy hamlet of Hackney Wick in about 1787. Fish Island was uninhabited marshland for millennia before the industrialists arrived here in the 18th Century. ![]()
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