Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
found in South East Asia, households and, therefore, communities reliant
on a wide range of resources that changed with seasons and with chang-
ing weather conditions were much more adapted to cope with long-term
changes in the availability of resources. The use of a wide variety of
resources by people in coastal communities was also found in Tanzania.
On Mai a and Zanzibar (Unguja) islands only 11 per cent of people
interviewed relied on a single source of income, with most people com-
bining their main source of income, some sort of i shing, with small-scale
agriculture (Andersson and Ngazi, 1998).
On Quirimba most people did combine some sort of marine resource
use, whether i shing or invertebrate collection, with subsistence agricul-
ture. However, within the invertebrate i shery a change was taking place.
The molluscs (
Pinctada nigra
,
Pinna muricata
and
Barbatia fusca
) were
originally collected by women as a subsistence commodity that was eaten
locally. In the community workshops the women who collected them
reported that in the last few years the prices they could get for them in
Pemba had risen sharply as demand for dried seafood increased. It was
therefore much better to sell them on the mainland rather than eat them
themselves or sell them on Quirimba. Others in the community associated
this change in use of invertebrates with a decline in their numbers and
said that it was virtually impossible for an ordinary Quirimban person to
af ord to buy these preferred species of shelli sh. The shelli sh produced
by the women were therefore the main commercial product of ordinary
people in Quirimba, whereas the i sh caught by the trap and net i shers,
although also forming an important commodity for the boat owners and
for dried i sh traders, was the main source of subsistence food for ordinary
households on Quirimba.
In Tanzanian coastal communities a similar pattern has been observed,
with an increase between 1993 and 1998 of the local consumption of i sh
and vegetables and the complete disappearance of intertidal invertebrates
from local diets. There too, prices have increased because of a combina-
tion of increased demand due to growing populations and the developing
tourism industry and increased scarcity as marine resources are overi shed
(Andersson and Ngazi, 1998). The situation in Tanzania is perhaps ten or
more years ahead of what was recorded in Quirimba in terms of economic
development. Cabo Delgado is one of the least economically developed
provinces in Mozambique (Hatton and Massinga, 1994). In Inhaca Island,
southern Mozambique, the invertebrates collected by the women are eaten
by the family and it is the i sh that is sold for cash (Wynter, 1990), perhaps
rel ecting the close proximity of a tourist market for i sh and the national
capital.
