ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION AND RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN

FISHERIES SECTOROVERVIEW OF THE SECTORLIBERALISATION MEASURESRESOURCE MANAGEMENT

FISHERIES SECTOR IN TANZANIA

• “Statistical information on the fisheries is inadequate and not much can be deduced from it”

• MARINE AND FRESH WATER FISHERIES• MARINE: TANZANIA COASTLINE & ZANZIBAR

ISLANDS AND MAFIA ISLAND• FRESH WATER: GREAT LAKES, SMALL LAKES

AND RIVERS

FISHERIES IN LAKE VICTORIA • Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest freshwater

lake (after Lake Superior)• Tanzania has jurisdiction over some 49% (about 34,700

km2) of Lake Victoria

• While the introduction of the perch into the lake in the 1950s triggered dramatic changes in the lake’s eco-system, it also spawned a whole new industry related to the capture, processing and subsequent export of perch fillets.

TANZANIA

FISHERIES IN LAKE VICTORIA

MWANZA CITY

MWANZA

MWANZA

Controversial film

DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE• “Darwin’s Nightmare” film was produced by a freelance

journalist of Austrian descent based in France.• GLOBALISATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON A DEVELOPING

ECONOMY• INTERNATIONAL FISH TRADE COMPANIES BENEFITING

AT THE EXPENSE OF DETERIORATING LIVELIHOODS OF THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES

• There's no voice-over narration in ''Darwin's Nightmare," Hubert Sauper's despairing, essential documentary about environmental and social cataclysm in Africa.

DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE• What sounds like healthy reciprocal capitalism plays out as

a worst-case scenario of exploitation and societal damage. With the factories owned by East Indian immigrants, townspeople can't afford the fish they catch

• the Nile Perch (Sangara) trade from Mwanza region in Tanzania facilitates poverty, hunger, prostitution, homelessness to children, environmental destruction, loss of lake Victoria biodiversity and human rights abuse in the area.

• high quality Nile Perch fillets are exported to the European market while the locals are left with fish remains, specifically the head and skeleton, popularly known by the Kiswahili word ‘mapanki’.

DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE• MPs tell Mwanza fisheries to clear Darwin’s Nightmare

Thu, Nov 02, 2006 • Fishery department has been urged to do everything at its disposal

to ensure Tanzania regains its goodwill in European Union (EU) fish fillet market tainted by the Darwin’s Nightmare film.

• Ndugai expressed concerns that the international image of the fish-fillet exporting industry in Mwanza was still shaky due to the 2004 Darwin’s Nightmare film produced by an Austrian director based in France, Hubert Sauper.

• Darwin’s Nightmare look at the economic and social impact of the release of a bucket full of Nile Perch into Lake Victoria. Over time, the perch’s fleshy white fillets proved popular on European dinner tables and spawned an industry worth millions of pounds a month.

• Mini boomtowns emerged on the lakeshore.

DARWIN’S NIGHTMARE

• The film claims this business has exacted huge cost on the Tanzanian community.

• They share in none of the profits, are exploited by overseas business interests, while ending up to consume fish leftovers, (mapanki).

• In August, the documentary drew a furious reaction from President Jakaya Kikwete with remarks that it had hurt the country’s image and caused a slump in exports of Nile Perch.

FISHERIES IN MWANZA

• Lake Victoria directly and indirectly provides a livelihood for their households as well as myriad traders, boatbuilders, gear artisans, transporters, and others who offer support services connected with the fisheries.

• Fishing in Lake Victoria has a long historical background.

• Prior to the flourishing of international fish fillet from Mwanza, fishing was not a major economic activities in Mwanza region

FISHERIES IN MWANZA• It was dominated by artisanal operators

equipped with canoes and various types of gears including gillnets, seines, traps, and longlines

• The fisheries are still heavily dominated by artisanal operators whose activities are mostly confined to the shallow inshore areas.

• most fishing activity involves small-scale, non-mechanised units and rather low investment levels.

• Even such artisanal operations vary considerably in their features

CHANGES IN FISHERIES INDUSTRY• The impact of the introduction of Nile perch, Lates niloticus

(L.) on the fisheries of Lake Victoria - A. P. Achieng (1990)• The Nile perch was introduced into Lake Victoria some 30

years ago, since when it has completely transformed the fishing industry and the species composition of the fish fauna of the lake.

• Nile perch first appeared in Lake Victoria in the late 1950s, when it may have have been introduced deliberately. The ecology of the Lake has been significantly affected by this action. By 1980 catches started to increase substantially to the present level estimated at 500,000 tonnes per annum.

CHANGES IN FISHERIES INDUSTRY

• The original multispecies fishery, based mostly on cichlids (haplochromines, tilapias), cyprinids (Barbus, Labeo, Rastrineobola) and siluroids (Bagrus, Clarias, Synodontis, Schilbe), has changed dramatically to one based on three species: the introduced Nile perch, the cyprinids, Rastrineobola argenrea (Pellegrin), and the introduced Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus (Linnaeus).

The Nile Perch

• The Nile perch Lates niloticus is a large freshwater fish found extensively in the rivers and lakes of Africa. Also known as capitaine, mputa or sangara, it can grow up to 200 kg and two metres in length. It is a predator, and lives and feeds throughout the water column. Its main attractions as a food fish are its abundance, ease of catching with a variety of artisanal and industrial techniques, its large size and very palatable bone-free white flesh.

CHANGES IN FISHERIES INDUSTRY• Nile perch first appeared in Lake Victoria in the late 1950s. The fish

is locally known as Mbuta or Sangara. Fishery experts say it can grow to two metres in length and weigh 200 kg.

• In 25 years the Nile perch became ubiquitous and now occurs almost every. It has preyed on all other species with profound effects. The stocks of haplochromines. originally comprised 80% of the total fish biomass but have now decreased to less than 1%.

• Nile perch, known locally as sangara, began to appear in significant numbers around Musoma and Mwanza in 1982.

• The fishermen of Lake Victoria have adjusted to this change • Nile perch has become the most important commercial species.

For the first fish fillets are now being exported to several overseas countries: the fillets are all from Nile perch.

CHANGES IN FISHERIES INDUSTRY

• The dramatic incursion and rapid ascendancy of the exogenous Nile perch, L. niloticus, it quickly became a dominant new feature of the Victoria waters of Tanzania

• Serious declines are registered for the Haplochromis species stocks; O. esculentus -- previously the most highly regarded and commercially important tilapia species is shown to have disappeared almost entirely.

CHANGES IN FISHERIES SECTOR

• The decline of cotton production, after the decline of the crop’s price on the world market and the death of co- operative societies in Mwanza in early 1990s, had changed the social economic development of the region. The emergence of the Nile Perch trade has created new opportunities for development in the region.

INTERNATIONAL DEMAND FOR FISH FILLET

• GROWTH OF DEMAND FOR FISH FILLET FROM EU

• JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA

LIBERALISATION?

LIBERALISATION

OUTCOMES

• GROWTH IN FISHERIES SECTOR• INTRODUCTION OF FISH PROCESSING

INDUSTRIES• TRANSFORMATION OF THE FISHERIES

ECONOMY• the greater integration of the fishing

communities into the global market.• LOSERS AND WINNERS

Fish Processing Industries in Mwanza

• Tanzania Fish Processors LtdVicfish Tanperch Industies LtdNile perch Industries LtdMwanza Fish Industries LtdTanzania Fisheries Development Co. Ltd,

• Fish and Meat (T) LtdVictoria Fisheries LtdOmega Fish Factory

OUTCOMES• Mwanza City Council received about Tshs 1.3 billion ($1.3

million) in fish levy from the sale of fresh Nile perch processed by the fish plants between April and December 2001.

• Earnings for the central government in taxes and royalty from exportation of Nile perch fillets were estimated at Tshs 10 billion ($ 10 million) annually.

• Tanzania produces about 220,000 tones of fresh and frozen fillets for export annually worth Tshs 77 billion ($77 million).

• About 80 per cent of the total production of Nile perch fillets are exported to Europe, while the rest is sold to the Asian market.

OUTCOMES

• more than 19 fishlandings. • The industry employs more 500,000 people.• The fish industry has created direct and

indirectly employment.• Changes in the social and economic nature of

the sector. Fishing is done mainly for commercial purposes, contrary to the traditional fishing which focused to household consumptions.

outcomes• about 52,000 fishermen benefit directly from Nile perch. • Sources indicate that in 1999/2000, local fishermen earned

Tsh 182 million ( $ 182,000) daily from selling their catch to the fish processing plants.

• It is also estimated that local fishermen earn about Tsh 65.5 billion ($ 65.5 million) annually from the sale of Nile perch to 12 fish processing plants that have sprung up around the lake. There are chances that, these earnings may rise by 40 per cent depending on market prices and the availability of the fish (Nile perch) from the Lake.

• Trade in the fish contributes about Tshs 1.7 billion ($ 1.7 Million) annually in levies to the Mwanza City Council alone.

Limitations

• Nile Perch trade has undermined artisan fishing, denying income to traditional fishing communities. New fishing require more advanced gear. Mechanised fishing and trawling has rendered artisanal fishing system functionless. Artisanal fishermen and local fish processors are being driven out of business.

• Benefits from Nile Perch trade are not fairly distributed

Limitations

• Social differentiation growing: owners of boats, dug out canoe versus fishermen, low wages. There is a growing tendencies towards monopoly and control fisheries activities and incomes that bring unfairness e.g. traders have control over fishermen; factory operators gain more control over agents/fisherman.

• Stratification: fishing crew; machinga at the lower level, to boat owners, traders and factory agents and factory owners.

Limitations• Local communities are being marginalised in the

process• Little of the benefits go into improving the

livelihoods of the local community.• Conditions at landing sites and villages nearby

have not improved. Increasing levels of poverty.• Pricing of Nile Perch: The factory owners fix fish

prices. The bargaining power of the fish factory agents, fishing crews, machinga and artisanal processors is low as they have no collective organization to promote their interests.

Limitations• Network between factory owners and fish traders at

landing sites• Factory owners ‘sponsor’ artisanal matajiri (fishing

vessel proprietors) by supplying nets and engines, the matajiri in return being obliged to deliver their catch to the factory. This effectively tied the matajiri to a specific processor

• This also facilitated further differentiation of chain members as more wealthy matajiri graduated to become trader/agents – purchasing fish from other fishermen to supplement their own catch before on-selling to the factories

Limitations

• Food insecurity:• Less fish stock is available for local consumption

as most of the catch is taken for factory processing. Fish has become too expensive for the local population to buy.

• Women being marginalized – traditional roles are no longer there. Women are engaged as “wamachinga” and processing of fish disqualified for industrial processing due to size.

Limitations

• Little trickling down of benefits to local communities from the growing fish export industry. The local village governments are therefore unable to cater for the growing requirements of population and settlement dynamics along the lakeshores and in the islands, such as service and infrastructure development; civic institutional organization, etc.

Limitations

• But overdependence on one sector or sub-sector of the economy makes it more vulnerable to changes. There is need for economic diversification to avoid risks of overspecialization.

• Environmental problems: Over-fishing and pollution. Environmental degradation of fishing settlements

Limitations

• Social conflicts: There is open access to fishery resources. The growing competition for fish resources has intensified conflicts between users. The conflicts are between big fishers and small scale fishers mainly using canoes, between those using boats and those using fish hooks, between Nile perch fishers and dagaa fishers.