Mozambican fishermen working on Cahora Bassa lake, in the western province of Tete, have indignantly rejected claims from government officials that their boats are illegal.

“These boats, which are operating illegally, did not submit any application”, declared Fatima Cinco-Reis, the Tete provincial director of fisheries, last week. “So they were illegal and they were built clandestinely”.

But the indignant fishermen could show reporters from the independent television station STV documents proving that their boats were licensed to fish on the lake.

One of the fishermen, Antonio Cachasso, declared “the 92 boats operating on Cahora Bassa lake have the registration booklets and ownership titles that were issued by the Tete Maritime Administration. If the director says the boats were built clandestinely, that means the money we paid in fees never entered state coffers”.

If the government now regards their operations as illegal, then it should give them their money back, the fishermen demanded.

The Cahora Bassa fishermen concentrate on shoals of a small fish called kapenta (otherwise known as the Lake Tanganyika sardine). But the kapenta fishery is now threatened by an influx of artisanal fishermen, not only from Mozambique but from other countries in the region, including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Congo.

The semi-industrial fishing companies on the lake complain that kapenta is now overfished, with the result that catches have declined drastically, threatening the livelihoods of legitimate fishery workers.

Recorded catches in 2017 were 6,969 tonnes, a reduction of over 41 per cent when compared with the catch of 11,915 tonnes in 2016. Because the catches by the illegal, unlicensed boats are not recorded, it is now known how much kapenta was really taken from the lake last year.

The artisanal fishermen are also accused of using illegal fishing gear, notably mosquito nets. These have a devastating impact on ecosystems since the mesh is no small that the nets catch not only adult fish, but also juveniles, thus threatening the species with eventual extinction.

Source: AIM