A scene from Pierre Vanneste's *Bargny project*.

68-year old Ndeye Yacine Dieng is a familiar face in Senegal. In fact, this daughter of Bargny Guetch is known to virtually all the climate justice activists in a country where about half the population lives along the coastline. From a very young age, she started raising the alarm about rising sea levels. Although more people are aware of her concerns today, the Senegalese government, or other governments around the world for that matter, are not adopting the decisions that can bring lasting relief to people. Ndeye Yacine has seen her country lose about 100 metres of coastline in her lifetime.

*Ndeye Yacine has been working to get the spotlight on the issue of coastal erosion in Bargny for decades.*

Her community, Bargny, is ground zero. This community of over 80 000 mostly Lebou fishermen has lost over 30% of its landmass to the sea. The government has been threatening to take another large chunk for gentrification projects. In fact, a coal power station is already in the vicinity and who knows what will come next. Although the situation looks hopeless, tireless champions like Ndeye Yacine have worked for years to slow down the assault on Bargy from both the sea and gentrification projects. The sea though, is undeniably the biggest threat.

“If you look over there, there used to be mosques there. There used to be cemeteries there, people’s homes, where children used to play”.

She looks in the direction of the sea, and points to an area where she spent a lot of her childhood. Like a hungry ogre whose hunger cannot be sated, the sea continues to take homes. In fact, the sea has also eaten Ndeye Yacine’s home, recently. Think about this: just before the Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, many media agencies travelled to Bargny to interview Ndeye Yacine about rising sea levels. The media campaign was a way to get all parties to COP to rapidly reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. Ndeye Yacine’s face was everywhere. Today, however, there is no change and global coal and oil consumption are at the highest level they have ever been. Humanity keeps going in the wrong direction.

We live in the age of the Anthropocene when every square inch of the planet has been modified by human activity. Crossing planetary borders comes with consequences for humanity’s very survival on planet earth. One aspect in particular, i.e. CO2 emissions, have devastating consequences for planet earth. The oceans are the largest CO2 reservoir in the world. CO2 rise comes with heating and, ultimately, more violent seas and other events like tropical storms.

*Sea ocean rise is caused by global heating. The sea in particular is warming because that is where most of the CO2 we emit is stored.*

Ndeye Yacine shows us the collapsed walls of her home, where she used to cook, where she and her children used to relax, sleep…everything is in ruins. Her children relocated before her. She stayed put, in defiance, but also to keep shining the light on her disappearing community. The media kept coming, and the homes kept disappearing. Now, we are here again with her, to survey the damage. To her left and right, up and down the coastline, as far as the eye can see, hundreds of homes have been torn down by the water.

*Ndeye Yacine showed us areas far into the sea where they used to play when she was still young. It was all sandy soil then. Terra firma. Now it is all sea!*

“It is a very bad situation,” says Ndeye Yacine. “Whenever a house collapses, its occupants relocate to another house in the same community. Imagine the conditions in such homes. Dozens of people, crammed into small spaces like sardines. You often see an entire family in the same room. You have people cooking and playing where they sleep. Such insalubrious conditions endangers the health and wellbeing of my community. “The National Adaptation plan has identified Bargny as one of the areas most affected by climate change. However, we do not see swift action to set up coastal defenses against the encroaching sea”. What we see instead is a desire to do deals with fossil fuel companies. Like the Bargny coal power station, for example. Activists like Fatou Sambah, who needs a network of women who process fish on a tongue of land between the sea and the Bargny coal power station, have been encouraging the government to adopt greener policies that pollute less, for years. Recently though, Senegal started pumping oil from the Grande Tortue Aymeyim field. There are indications that Sangomar will be next.

There was also a major gentrification project. Like Laurence Grun and Pierre Vanneste say in the Documentary Bargny, the real face of Economic Emergence: A series of major projects have jeopardised their local economy and social organisation: the construction of a cement factory in 1984; the construction of a coal plant, which residents have been fighting since 2008; and an urban development hub aimed at Dakar’s upper class and foreign investors, which has been under construction since 2014. All this comes in addition to a decade of continuing coastal erosion and the announced construction of a new mineral and bulk port a few months ago. The community is under attack from all sides.

*Ndeye Yacine in the documentary "Bargny Project"*

Ndeye Yacine is determined to show Senegalese and other people around the world that climate change is here and that we need to adapt to it. She is happy that her efforts have brought a lot of media attention to the loss and damage that many communities already face. Although Bargny survives mainly through solidarity networks – from fishermen’s daily catch as well as from thousands of young people who have migrated to Europe – Ndeye Yacine believes that those who are responsible for climate change should be doing more. She vows to continue the struggle as long as she has some breath left in her: