Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
no fresh water. It is easy to see how these fragmented sea-bound deserts, strung out in
the vastness of the Mozambique Channel, got their name.
Yet, for as many as nine months of the year, small nomadic communities make this
inhospitable land their home. Migrant families, who have sailed as far as 1,000km
in dugout wooden pirogues to reach the islands, sleep under the sails of their boats.
Theirmostimportantpossessionsaretheirfishinggear.Otherwiseafewcookingpots,
a plastic basin for washing and a drum for storing water suffice - they must bring
everything onto the islands with them.
Following the seasonal movements of favoured fish species - those that fetch the
highest price in local markets - some families will spend as much as two months at
sea, making the long journey from their villages in the south.
The legacy of this complex human journey can be traced in the composition of the
villages along the west coast. In all of these places, migrants of some kind or another
- old and new - have settled. There are many migrations across the entire west and
southwest coast of Madagascar. But the journeys from villages north of Toliara to the
Barren Islands are among the longest and most dangerous routes.
The Vezo pirogues are battered by the force of oceanic southwesterly winds that
charge up the Mozambique Channel. For vast stretches of the coastline there are very
few places to come ashore to shelter from the high winds and huge swells.
Scattered safe landing places are hard to find, and days and nights can be spent at
sea before it is possible to reach land. Every year there are casualties and deaths; fish-
ermen that set sail in the morning and don't return, and divers who don't make it back
to the surface alive. But while the dangers are great, the changing dynamics of this
traditional migration make the risk worth taking for many Vezo.
What was once a largely subsistence-based movement to new fishing grounds, has
becomeanincreasinglycommercialisedtemporaryresettlementoffishermen.Thede-
mand on Asian markets for delicacies such as shark fin and sea cucumbers is pushing
many of Madagascar's seafaring Vezo to the limits.
A devastating combination of climate change, and over-fishing caused by coastal
population growth and industrial fishing, mean that Madagascar's fragile marine re-
sources are in decline. The contest for what remains is tough. The Vezo now compete
with mechanised trawlers - some fishing illegally in Malagasy waters.
What was once a way of relieving pressure on historic fishing grounds has become
an intense and dangerous pursuit of the shark fin and sea cucumbers that are now the
ocean's gold. As these resources dwindle, success for many of the younger migrants
is short-lived. The sea has always provided for the Vezo, and money earned there is
spent quickly on land, in the expectation that it can be earned again tomorrow. Yet
many migrants now return home empty-handed - with only memories of an ocean in
which sea life was once abundant and sharks so numerous that it was too dangerous
