The Sunday Mail
Tendai Chara – Extra Reporter
Emmerson Katongomara, of Charara in Kariba, shakes his head in disbelief as a fellow fisherman announces his night’s catch of kapenta fish.
After having toiled from dusk till dawn, battling dangerous waves and enduring the cold, the fishermen – members of the Musambakaruma Fishing Co-operative – are disheartened by their 40kg catch.
Accusing the mythical Zambezi River god Nyaminyami of being “selfish”, the fishermen silently go about their duties, inspecting and repairing the nets.
In less than eight hours, the men will be back at work, casting the same nets into the same lake’s deep, mean waters. And this time hope for better.
This is the life of the ordinary Kariba fisher, whose once prosperous business has been drastically affected by the dwindling fish stocks.
The slumping stocks in Lake Kariba have brought both alarm and suffering to thousands of families.
Kapenta is a source of cheap protein and income for many people in Southern Africa.
The future of this business does not look good, if the sad statistics released to The Sunday Mail Extra recently are anything to go by
For the past five years, Katongomara and his fellow fishermen have watched helplessly as the kapenta fish harvests have dwindled.
“We used to harvest as much as 60 bags of kapenta every night, but that number has since whittled down to less than 20 bags on average per night. The catches are decreasing with each passing year,” Katongomara said.
When Musambakaruma Co-operative was formed 20 years ago, it had 10 kapenta rigs and employed more than 40 people.
From the 10 rigs that the co-operative started with, only one is functional.
The others were either sold off to cover mounting debts or are lying idle because the co-operative cannot afford to repair them.
The introduction of the predatory crayfish has also depleted stocks. Crayfish were introduced from Australia in 2008 and they devour both kapenta eggs and hatchlings.
Many fishers believe Nyaminyami is displeased with them for one reason or another; while others blame their neighbours across the water in Zambia for depleting the stocks.
“Zambian fisherman are the source of our misery. Authorities in that country are not strict enough when it comes to fishing as their fisherman even fish in rivers and shallow waters,” Mr Jeremiah Kumbuya alleged.
According to the Zimbabweans, their Zambian counterparts are using banned four-milimetre fishing nets which can catch the smallest of fish. And after exhausting their stocks, the Zambians are allegedly poaching in Zimbabwean waters.
According to bilateral maritime agreements reached in 1999, Zimbabwean fishers are supposed to have 55 percent of fishing boats on the lake and Zambia the remaining 45 percent.
Zambian boats, however, far outnumber Zimbabwean ones, with estimates putting the number to be more than triple the recommended figure.
A Zambian fishing concern is required to pay a yearly subscription fee of US$800 and from that amount the fisheries can operate as many kapenta fishing rigs as they want.
Conversely, Zimbabwean fishers pay a yearly subscription of US$2 000 per kapenta rig.
Whilst it is harder to get a permit from the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, it is far easier to get the same authorisation in Zambia.
And unlike in Zimbabwe, Zambian chiefs have authority to issue fishing permits.
“In Zambia, a kilogramme of kapenta is selling for US$8. In Zimbabwe, we are selling the same kapenta at US$4 a kilogramme. Something is wrong somewhere,” fisherman Mr David Nyamadzawo said.
Mr Cephas Shonhiwa, chairperson of the Indigenous Kapenta Producers’ Association of Zimbabwe, called for harmonisation of measures in the two countries.
“Zimbabwean and Zambian fishermen catch fish from the same source and as such uniform control measures should be put in place. Zimbabwean authorities are too strict whilst their Zambian counterparts are way too lax,” Mr Shonhiwa said.
It is estimated that Lake Kariba’s kapenta population can support 500 rigs, but Zambia has some 725 vessels on the water. The Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority says the country has 406.
As a result, permits for new boats have been suspended in Zimbabwe, but they are still being issued in Zambia.
Depleting fish stocks are not only confined to Lake Kariba alone, as recent studies have revealed that in the past 40 years, world wildlife populations have halved.
This is for both water-based and non-water-based life. The index tracks more than 10 000 vertebrate species populations from 1970 to 2010.
In its latest Living Planet Index, the London Zoological Society reports that species have halved in 40 years, and populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish have declined by an average 52 percent.
Populations of freshwater species have suffered an even worse fall – 76 percent.
The report states that humans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can re-grow, harvesting more fish than oceans can re-stock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more carbon than oceans and forests can absorb.
The lion population in a Ghana reserve has fallen by 90 percent in 40 years whilst in West Africa, the cutting down of trees has restricted forest elephants to 6-7 percent of their historical range.
On a global scale, habitat loss and hunting have reduced tigers from 100 000 a century ago to just 3 000.
Research has shown that the number of birds continues to fall in the United Kingdom.
Fish account for 16 percent of the world’s animal protein intake and the intake increases to 20 percent in low-income food-deficit nations, most of which are in the tropics.
