Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
study increasing numbers of i shers from Nampula started coming to
Quirimba and other islands in the Archipelago. They inhabited the islands
in groups of tens to hundreds of i shers on a seasonal basis, usually staying
between three and six months during the dry season. These i shers said
that they have been forced to i sh in the Quirimbas by the depletion of
their own nearshore i sh stocks. Nampula has indeed had a much more
intensive artisanal i shery sector than Cabo Delgado. In 1994 there were
reportedly 180 beach seines in the Province of Cabo Delgado and 10 882
in Nampula. The coast of Nampula is about 50 per cent longer than that
of Cabo Delgado but it had a seine netting intensity 600 per cent greater
(Republic of Mozambique State Secretariat of Fisheries, 1994b). Fishers
working for companies in Nampula i shed with an intensity and a com-
mercial intent that was very dif erent from the Quirimbans' subsistence
approach. Nampula i shers returned to their home towns with boats full
of the dried i sh and invertebrates they had collected in the Quirimbas,
part of which they kept for their families over the wet season and part they
sold commercially in Nampula. Fishers from Nacala (provincial capital of
Nampula) were recognized as a major component of the i shing industry in
the Macomia district, further north from Quirimba in Ibo district (Wilson
et al., 1996).
Up to the end of 1997 no active regulation of i shing activity in the
Quirimbas was in place. Far from trying to control the systematic
depletion of their marine resources themselves, Quirimban i shers were
welcoming the invasions of Nampula i shers despite the gradually emerg-
ing problems of wells running dry, traps being caught in the nets of the
visiting i shers and other small but signii cant signs of potential impend-
ing conl ict. Possible reasons for the Quirimbas welcoming behaviour
include a desire to maintain contact with people from a more developed
part of Mozambique. One local i sher said he enjoyed the company of the
Nampula i shers because they were more educated in Islam than most
local people and he found them interesting. The Quirimban i shing com-
munity also seemed generally to be a very open, welcoming community
(the way they welcomed this study is a good example), maybe an extension
of the 'kinship' idea addressed previously.
Highly mobile i shing l eets are not unusual in the East African region
and have led to conl icts elsewhere. For instance, in southern Kenya, itin-
erant i shers from Pemba Island in Tanzania, having reputedly depleted
their own i sh stocks, i shed in traditionally managed reef areas against
local management regulations (McClanahan, et al., 1997). In Tanzania,
iceboats from Dar es Salaam i sh right the way down the coast of
Tanzania, often using dynamite and other damaging methods.
One of the problems with this situation of over-exploitation by itinerant
