Early in the morning, 42 year old, Mwajasho Omari (not real name), puts on his tattered short sleeved shirt and an old pair of shorts, and heads for the sea shore.
Mwajasho is from Kibafuta village but shifted to Kigombe – a fishing location on the coast line, along the Tanga–Pangani road over a decade ago in search of better pastures.
In a team of fellow fishermen, he embarks on a dhow shortly before night fall to venture on a fishing voyage –an expedition which takes the whole night.
Back at the sea –shore at sunrise, exhausted from a night of hard fishing at Indian Ocean’s deep sea, the group disentangles the net and divides the catch.
“Alas, so this is what I had spent the sleepless night for?” Omari asks himself in a low tone. Apparently, the fisherman had, in his small basket, only 20 small fish, of the length of a table spoon.
“In the last ten years I have worked, nothing has changed – every time I keep hoping next day would be better; but the lot I harvest has always been negligible,” he laments.
Along Tanzania’s coastal strip, everybody seems to be going for easy fishing, and there lies the problem – illegal fishing by use of dynamites.
Done in a small scale for the last 40 years or so, it is now a threat; not only to the strategic fishing sector where population of fishing is decreasing at threatening level but also to the marine tourism.
As at present, tourists, especially those coming from Germany, have to think twice before visiting Tanga coastal shores.
“Dynamite fishing is on the increase each passing day. A few years ago, it was different,” says a seasonal tourist,” adding that areas he used to visit for snorkeling and diving are no longer suitable.
“It is unfortunate that the situation has turned to more less a battle front every passing day; for in a single day, more than ten blasts can be heard not far from the beach area, causing panic to those diving and snorkeling nearby.”
While snorkeling, one hears blasts in clear view, defeating the purpose of the entire mission to enjoy the beauty of the country’s treasures, according to the tourist.
How can visitors coming for holidays continue doing so in a situation where they are scared, full of tension and anxiety, says a beach hotel owner along the coastal waters.
Reports from marine life stakeholders say the dynamiters have now extended their illegal practice to harvesting tuna – heavy built fish and a delicious specie which is mostly exported to European markets.
The reports further say dolphin is fish specie which is, by Tanzania’s laws protected by the government, are also being hunted for its oily properties.
“Unless acts of dynamite fishing are controlled, the future, as far as diving and snorkeling industry is concerned is bleak,” quips another beach hotel entrepreneur, who opted for anonymity.
Dynamite fishing is disastrous to marine life, in that it kills schools of fish – breeding areas for various species of fish, rendering the various species homes, according to a marine scientist.
“When they are displaced, their only destination is deep seas – under large rocks where disturbance will be minimal,” he asserted in an exclusive interview with this paper.
“Considering the pace at which the vice is progressing, I am afraid, the country’s reputation may be dented – unless the trend is reversed,” says a tourism stakeholder.
Coral reefs are most precious marine resources. It is estimated that by 1990’s, 10 percent had been devastated beyond recovery. Certainly, the trend has by now gone up even more than threshold.
Corals, on the other hand, are very delicate creatures which normally detest noise and would not live in contaminated or dirty water.
“On the whole, the vice has reached highest proportions. It is done in the vicinity of the people living near sea shore as if it was not out lawed,” remarks a retired government official, a resident of Kigombe.
In some villages along the coastal strip, the residents doubt whether the government has muscles enough to contain the situation.
“Do not expect wonders. For how do you expect dynamite fishing to be brought to a control when the people whose role it is to prevent bombing and bring perpetrators to book when they themselves have stake in the vice,“quipped Shehe Omari, a resident of Kigombe.
“We need government commitment at national and regional level to make dynamite fishing history,” according to a retired Fisheries Officer.
It is to be remembered that during 1994 – 2004 era, then Tanga Coastal Zone Conservation and Development Programme had, with help of Navy, reduced dynamite fishing rate to almost zero. But shortly after, the navy pulled out for whatever reason, and the vice remerged, with full force.
In fact the dynamiters are so ferocious that they reportedly burnt down a government owned patrol boat parked on the shores of Coelacanth Park at Kigombe in 2011.
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