Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
i shers in the Quirimbas is that, for the purpose of future management or
legislation, it will be very dii cult to say who is a Quirimban resident and
to whom the marine resources of the Quirimbas actually belong. During
the war people were forced to move around a lot to escape the intense
i ghting in rural areas. Some refugees stayed where they l ed to, others
have moved back to their home villages. Many people have also contin-
ued to move, whether between dif erent opportunities to work or between
partners or family members displaced throughout the area. There is also a
lot of movement between towns and rural areas. Much trading is done by
boat, so as well as the movement of people between the islands and main-
land towns and villages there is an additional group of people who are
continuously moving up and down the coast between ports from Nampula
to Mtwara in southern Tanzania. The Mwani people of the coast are his-
torically i shers and traders and the trading is still an important part of
coastal culture.
It seemed to be dii cult for people on the islands to think of the sur-
rounding marine resources as theirs. The majority had moved around so
much in their lifetime that the idea of having to move on again because
of resource depletion did not seem as serious as it perhaps may have
seemed to a more settled community. One fairly typical i sher interviewed
on Quirimba Island was just 24 years old but had already moved numer-
ous times and had changed his i shing method on each occasion. He had
moved from freshwater i shing as a boy in an inland village, to line i shing
from a coastal village, octopus i shing on Quisiva, through a variety of
other locations and i shing methods to trap i shing on Quirimba. He had
family members on four of the other islands and in numerous villages in
the mainland. To him the idea of having to leave Quirimba because the
'i sh had run out' was not distressing at all. The threat of i sh or inverte-
brates running out was not normally considered, and one interviewee said
'There will be i shers at Quiwandala [the main i sh landing site] until the
end of the world'.
Threats to sustainable resource use
This study has identii ed four main threats to sustainable resource use in
the area, namely:
Population growth Coastal populations throughout Mozambique are on
the increase. During the 1990s the population of the Quirimbas increased
through a higher birth rate and immigration of refugees. Quirimba Island
had a population of nearly 3000 but no provision for waste manage-
ment. A growing population will inevitably put increasing pressure on the
marine resources. The need for i rewood from mangrove areas and for
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