Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Resources sold outside Quirimba
Large quantities of dried i sh are sold
of the island in two main ways. First, island-based traders buy i sh from
i shers, particularly trap i shers, accumulate a large quantity of dried
i sh then sell it in the market in Pemba or in markets elsewhere in Cabo
Delgado province. They buy i sh, often a lot of
Lethrinus
variegatus
and
Leptoscarus vaigiensis
, for 3000MZN (meticais) per kilo wet weight, and
sell it for 15 000-20 000MZN dried (12 000MZN was equal to approxi-
mately US$1 during the study period, so traders paid US$0.25 per kilo
for i sh and sold it for US$1.25-1.67). This seems like a large proi t but
in fact the dried i sh will have lost up to three-quarters of its wet weight
through drying, gutting and cleaning. Net i shing boat owners also buy
i sh to sell on the mainland. They have an arrangement with their boat's
crew whereby they either buy the majority of i sh caught at a reduced price
or they pay their crew a certain wage and receive the majority of the i sh as
their share of the operation. They dry this i sh and accumulate it in storage
until they have enough to make the trip to Pemba to sell it.
The other main route to sale for Quirimban i sh is through i shers
from the mainland who come to Quirimba and the other islands in the
Archipelago to i sh. A small proportion of these i shers are from villages
on the nearby mainland such as Mahate and as far south as Pemba. Many
of them have been coming to the Quirimbas to i sh for many years. Most
are farmers in the wet season and i sh the Quirimbas in the dry season.
The dried i sh supplements their family's diet of maize and cassava, and
can also be sold for cash to buy any goods that the family cannot produce
themselves, such as clothes, cooking oil and medicines.
The majority of the visiting i shers are from the next province south,
Nampula, and have only been i shing the Quirimbas in large numbers for
a few years (from interviews with Nampula i shers and J. Gessner pers.
comm.). These i shers are in a similar situation to those described above -
they have agricultural work in the wet season and come to the Quirimbas
in the dry season to catch i sh to dry and take back to eat over the wet
season and to sell. Traders also come to Quirimba to buy dried i sh,
which they said is 'better quality' than the i sh they can buy in Nampula.
These traders deal in hundreds of kilos of i sh, which they drive down to
Nampula.
Cash commodities for export
The only really lucrative commercially
driven i shery on Quirimba is the sea cucumber i shery. In the mid-1990s
a large commercial sea cucumber i shing operation based in Pemba was
active in the whole of the Quirimba Archipelago. The operation was
run by a Chinese export company who processed the sea cucumbers and
exported them to the Far East along with other commercially valuable
