Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of the Quirimban residents to their resources are established. Once they
are assured, people of the Quirimbas can begin to take responsibility for
the protection or guardianship of those resources before, for example,
land is sold to a businessperson as a theme park or sea cucumbers are dried
and sent to the Far East as an aphrodisiac.
Indirect threats to the marine ecosystems
An important new growth
industry in the north of Mozambique was forestry and with two major
rivers entering the sea in the vicinity of the Archipelago the potential
for the indirect impacts of siltation of reefs, seagrass beds and man-
groves was great. As with all other development in the remote north
of the country, logging of coastal forests was dii cult to monitor and
control and it is likely that illegal logging was a serious problem in the
area. Large areas of old forest were logged and this was likely to lead to
increased erosion leading to silt being washed downriver and into the sea
around the Archipelago. Slash and burn agriculture is widespread on the
mainland and this will also lead to increases in soil erosion and potential
siltation problems. Coral reefs are particularly susceptible to the ef ects
of heavy siltation but seagrasses too are unable to tolerate high levels of
sedimentation with low light levels (Bach et al., 1998).
Management implications and problems
The four major threats identii ed above do not feature strongly in the
concerns expressed by the residents of the Archipelago. The majority
of the threats have yet to manifest themselves in the form of dramatic
decreases in i sh or invertebrate catches. The i shers did not complain
about the outside i shers using their i shing sites but did complain about
the high prices of i shing gear. The main concern of women was that
with the growing demand for their dried shelli sh products in Pemba and
other mainland towns, the favoured species of shelli sh were becoming an
unaf ordable luxury. The majority of people interviewed who were resi-
dent permanently in the islands seemed satisi ed with the present situation.
They had access to agricultural land to grow basic foods such as sweet
potatoes, cassava and papayas and they supplemented this diet with i sh
and shelli sh.
On a day-to-day basis, people throughout the Quirimbas suf ered
through lack of basic health care. Paying for medicines was often dif-
i cult in a virtually cashless economy. Minor injuries and illnesses often
went untreated and led to more serious conditions and the long-term
loss of income. For example, a i sher on Quirimba with a small infected
sore did not receive treatment, the injury became more serious and he
was unable to i sh for a period of months, inl icting hardship on himself
