Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The stories of how i shing boat owners made the money to initially
buy the i shing boats varied. Some were local men who had worked their
way up from being a i sher crewing a large seine net i shing boat, to trap
i shing, to buying their own large boat. A few had family money from land
ownership, others had come from the mainland specii cally to i sh.
The seine net i shing boats were built in Quirimba village with wood
imported from the continent. A 3m boat cost from 2 to 2.5 million meticais
(around US$200). A 4m boat cost around 3 million meticais. One of the
boat owners interviewed had bought his current i shing boat for 1.5 million
four years previously. The nets were bought on the mainland, usually in
Pemba. A new net complete with l oats, weights and ropes reportedly
cost 10 million meticais but all the boat owners interviewed had bought
their nets second-hand for around 3 million meticais. They expected the
nets to last for 10-15 years. Various systems of payment were used on the
i shing boats. Some of the boat owners paid their crew 4000MZN per kg
of i sh caught and said their catch could range from a few kilos to a few
hundred kilos. The pay per trip for the crew worked out at 10 000MZN per
i sher and 14 000MZN for the captain, and some small share of the catch,
usually 1kg. The owners also had to pay four or so people to clean the i sh.
They were usually paid one kilo of i sh or 4000MZN each day. (See Table
8.4 for salaries for the various i shing jobs on Quirimba and Table 8.5 for
the costs and earnings in the seagrass trap and net i sheries.)
Economic gain from i shing
Net i shing
The average daily catch per boat was 75kg. If this was sold
at 4000MZN per kilo it would be worth 300000MZN (US$24). Out of
this the boat owner paid an average of eight crew 10 000MZN each, the
captain 14000MZN and i ve people 4000MZN to clean the i sh. This
would give a total daily expenditure of 114 000MZN, making a total proi t
of 186 000MZN (US$14.90). Boat owners had responsibility for maintain-
ing boats and nets, buying new ropes and other materials, so some money
would go towards this. Ropes in particular needed replacing regularly,
perhaps once a year. Around neap tides some boats catch just 25kg of i sh,
worth 100000MZN, which is less than the daily expenditure calculated
above. Occasionally, when things went wrong and the sail broke or the
boat ran aground, the crew would come back with no i sh and presumably
on these days everyone would go home empty-handed.
Other boat owners organized the i shing in a dif erent way. They took
a certain amount of i sh every day as their share and the value of the rest
was divided between the crew with the captain getting slightly more. In
this case it was in the interest of the crew to catch more i sh to increase
their wage but there did not seem to be an inclination for i shers on boats
