Dams, Displacement, and the Delusion of Development by Isaacman Allen F.;Isaacman Barbara S.;

Author:Isaacman, Allen F.;Isaacman, Barbara S.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2013-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

A fourth, more significant, factor was the speed with which fishermen—desperate to maximize their catches in the face of fierce competition—adopted higher yielding, but unsustainable, harvesting methods.946They did so by replacing the coarse, locally produced fiber nets used in the past with imported finer-mesh, machine-made gill nets whose openings were less than half as wide.947Aniva João described why the new “mosquito” nets quickly became so popular: “The mosquito net’s openings were very fine. Two fishermen entered the water, each holding one end of the net. When they placed the net below the surface, it was like putting on a capulana [a cloth worn by African men and women]. It covered everything. Nothing could escape. In a few hours they could fill several sacks.”948Fishermen began to use this finer material for their larger kokota nets, which enabled them both to enclose an area of several hundred meters and to ensnarl very young fish,949thus depleting future populations. While such innovations enabled fishermen to increase their daily haul and their profits, they violated a long-standing cultural prohibition against overfishing. As Marita Zhuwao explained, “In the past, if one continued to fish even after one caught sufficient fish for one’s family, the spirits [of the river] would get angry. Then, if one threw in the nets to catch more fish, maybe one would catch a dead baby, or some other bad omen.”950The spirits were right. Capturing many more younger and smaller fish had a devastating effect on the reproductive capacity of numerous of species in the lower Zambezi.951Many areas quickly showed signs of being overfished, and yields fell even further.

While no catch statistics exist for the region as a whole, available evidence points conclusively to a radical decline in freshwater fisheries after 1975. Before the Zambezi’s impoundment, the annual total catch in the delta was calculated at between thirty and fifty thousand tonnes per year; less than a decade after the dam’s completion it had dropped by 25 to 50 percent.952The number of fishing camps and drying racks also plummeted.953In Marromeu, which had been a commercial fishing center, less than 20 percent of the households were engaged in this activity in 2000,954and many delta fisheries were abandoned, except during years of exceptional flooding.955Moreover, the dramatic decline in the delta’s shrimp population further impoverished both local fishing families and Mozambique’s major export sector.

Fishermen insist that, since Cahora Bassa began operation, they have worked longer and harder for a smaller catch. “These days,” noted Artur Medja, “it is difficult to catch any fish and those that we do are very small.”956In the formerly rich fishing area of Inhangoma, Francisco Manuel and his neighbors complained that their “nets were practically useless,”957and their wives mourned the old days, when “there was a lot of fish and people were catching handsomely, unlike nowadays.”958No one summed up this shared sense of despair more powerfully than Chidasiyikwa Mavungire, who had spent his entire life fishing: “There are very few fish in the river, and it is no longer like before.”959

For those

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