FEATURE : Tanzania sets strategy to end chronic blast fishing

Mtwara. The days of people involved in blast fishing, who are wreaking havoc along Tanzania’s 800-kilometre coastal line, are numbered, warns head of the Multi-Agency Task Team (Matt) deputy commissioner of Police (DCP) Daniel Nyambabe.

“Our goal is to stamp out blast or dynamite fishing by 2016 and make it history,” DCP Nyambabe told The Citizen on Sunday in an interview on the sidelines of a two-day seminar in Mtwara last week to build understanding of the magnitude of blast fishing and find out ways and means of ending it.

Launched in June, this year, Matt aims at finding a lasting solution to escalating cases of environmental and wildlife crime taking place in Tanzania, including blast fishing.

The focus of Matt is to target individuals and networks that run this illegal trade, bring them to justice and seize any assets obtained through their activities.

Matt is led by the police and involves Tanzania Forest Services, the Wildlife Division, Fisheries Division, Tanzania Intelligence and Security Services as well as seeking engagement with the criminal justice system.

Participants in the seminar organized by the National Environment Management Council (Nemc) and supported by WWF Tanzania said the launch of Matt showed there was now political will to fight blast (dynamite) fishing which has been in place for over 50 years.

Matt was launched with financial support from SmartFish project, a regional fisheries programme managed by the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) and funded by the European Union and co-implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). IOC-SmartFish, which operates in 20 countries throughout the Indian Ocean region, Southern and Eastern Africa, focuses on fisheries governance, management, monitoring control and surveillance, trade, and food security.

“Under the supervision of chief of special operations DCP Nyambabe the operation to end blast fishing is likely to succeed,” said some of the participants to the seminar, mostly players in the fisheries industry, including the judiciary, the police, fisheries division, the Attorney General Chambers’ Office and local government authorities. Nemc has also conducted such seminars in Bagamoyo District in Coast Region and in Tanga Region.

DCP Nyambabe is credited for his success in the fight against wildlife crime following the recent arrests of people accused of being at the heart of poaching, including the Chinese woman nicknamed the “Queen of Ivory” and Boniface Mariango alias “The Devil”.

The National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit (NTSCIU), also headed by DCP Nyambabe, is behind the arrest of “The Queen of Ivory” who has since been charged in court with smuggling 706 elephant tusks from Tanzania worth Sh5.4 billion. And the man christened as “The Devil”, allegedly Tanzania’s most wanted elephant poacher and ivory trafficker believed to be responsible for the killings of thousands of elephants over the past years, was also arrested recently by the NTSCIU.

Speaking during the seminar, DCP Nyambabe said: “The fight against blast fishing is no longer business as usual. We have started dealing with the financiers and suppliers of the dynamite.”

“We will be carrying out swift operations based on vivid intelligence evidence,” said DCP Nyambabe.

The WWF Tanzania country director, Dr Amani Ngusaru, appreciated efforts being taken by the government and other stakeholders in fighting blast feeding.

“There is a new breed of leadership within the government and enforcement forces. We have a lot of hope,” said Dr Ngusaru, giving alarming statistics showing how serious the problem is.

Dr Ngusaru, a marine scientist, added: “The fight against blast fishing is now on focus because there is new energy, new effort, new leadership and new commitment.”

“Our ocean has begun turning into a battle ground between those involved in dynamite fishing and the defenceless fish,” said Dr Ngusaru, quoting statistics showing that 30 blasts were heard in a day at Mgao Village in Mtwara Region and 47 blasts were recorded in a day at Songosongo in Kilwa District in Lindi Region.

He said communities in Songosongo reported 8,765 blasts within 15 months beginning January 2014, which was an average of 23 blasts a day while communities at Mgao Village reported 2,683 blasts in nine months beginning April 2014, an average of 10 blasts in a day.

Dr Ngusaru added that a study done by WWF Tanzania in Dar es Salaam in 2013 using hydrophone reported an average of 19 blasts in a day.

Mtwara Urban district commissioner Fatma Salim Ally thanked Nemc and WWF Tanzania for organising the seminar in the region which she said was notorious for blast fishing.

“There are 19 villages along the coast where blast fishing is the norm of the day,” she said, adding that the fishing malpractice was depleting the area of fish, a source of protein to residents in the area and also a source of income.

“Some species of fish are now extinct due to blast fishing. People are now forced to buy Tilapia and Nile Perch from fresh water lakes such as Lake Victoria,” she said, adding that the seminar was a wake-up call for the district authorities to deal with the dynamiters.

Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development assistant director Baraka Mngwilu said blast fishing was causing great harm to marine environment.

“Prawns have disappeared in some areas. Coral reefs have been destroyed and tourists who come for snorkelling are scared,” said Mngwilu, giving as an example that a tourist was blasted to death in the Philippines recently scaring away tourists. “We have to fight blast fishing which is planned by wealthy people with powerful syndicates with full force, otherwise we will have no fish left in 10 years to come,” he said.

Nemc director general Bonaventure Baya said it was a shame to the nation that Tanzania was still struggling to fight blast fishing 50 years on since the malpractice surfaced in the country.

“It is high time we eliminated this problem and relegate it into history books,” argued Baya, calling for collective efforts in finding a lasting solution to the problem.

Dr Christopher Muhando, a senior researcher with the Institute of Marine Sciences based in Zanzibar, and Rose Sallema Mtui, Nemc’s head of Environmental Research Coordination, said destructive fishing practices damaged coral reefs, which were breeding grounds for fish.

They said coral reefs were highly adapted to live and grow slowly and when damaged they took centuries to recover and in some incidents they never recovered at all.

Dr Muhando and Mtui said reefs provided many useful goods and services, adding that coastal livelihoods were highly dependent on coral reefs.

They said blast fishing demolished the coral framework, reduced the complex three dimensional topography to rubbles, thus, denying living habitats for millions of reef organisms and disrupting provision of all services and goods.

The two scientists said coral reef destruction was associated with low fish productivity and rampant poverty and they called for the protection of coral reefs for the prosperity of the nation.

Hassan Libwala and Sharifa Temela, fisheries officers from Lindi Region, expressed worries that after exhausting fish from the sea, the dynamiters could turn to using the explosives in breaking into people’s houses to steal.

“Dynamite is very powerful. They could be used to break into people’s homes at night after exhausting their illegal fishing business,” they told the seminar.

Libwala blamed police and magistrates for what he described as “letting dynamiters scot-free after we arrest them with vivid evidence”. “The police and some magistrates are letting us down when it comes to fighting against blast fishing,” said Libwala, alleging that some of those in the justice dispensing arm were on the payroll of wealthy dynamiters.

For his part, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Biswalo Mganga, said in fighting dynamite fishing stakeholders should avoid blame game and confrontations instead they should create an atmosphere of cooperation.

“I think the focus should be to review fisheries laws and other legislations relevant to the fisheries industry with a view to amending them,” said Mganga, quoting former US President John Kennedy as saying: “The time to repair your roof is when the sun is shining.”

High Court deputy registrar Projestus Kahyoza said a research that explored how effectively magistrate courts deal with cases involving dynamite fishing found out that magistrates’ knowledge about dynamite fishing was limited.

He said the research recommended that magistrates and other stakeholders should be trained on principles of sentencing and other principles obtaining in dynamite fishing laws.

“These training should go hand in hand with the general public’s awareness campaign on environmental and economic impacts of dynamite fishing,” said Mr Kahyoza in his presentation entitled: “Prosecution, Judgement and Sentencing of Dynamite Fishing Offenders: The Law and the Practice”.

Winfred Haule, a retired assistant director of fisheries and executive director of Tanzania Fisheries and Aquatic Environment Organisation (Tafaeo), said the Fisheries Act 2003 should be reviewed and toughened for the war on dynamite fishing to succeed.

Haule said one of the reasons advanced for dynamite fishing continuing unabated was thought to be ineffective investigation and prosecution of dynamite fishing cases resulting in a relatively low level of significant penalties being meted out.

Dynamite fishing has been illegal in Tanzania since the former Fisheries Act of 1970. However, it has been a longstanding problem causing widespread damage to shallow water marine habitats and fisheries productivity over a marine water body area of about 64,000 square kilometres and along the Mainland coast line.

In the course of deliberations, it was revealed that some of the former players in the illegal undertaking have assisted fisheries managers in convincing others to give up blast fishing, but facts on the ground showed that injuries and warnings have not succeeded in deterring the use of dynamite for fishing.

Dynamite fishing is not only a threat to the marine resources as participants heard but such method that uses explosives can be life threatening to mankind.

Accidents when using dynamite have been reported to cause physical disabilities while locally made fertilizers and diesel/petrol blasts used for fishing purposes represent a major security threat among societies.

Also the same explosives used for blast fishing could be applied in social conflicts or during political chaos, the participants observed adding that if not prevented at early stages, locally made blasts could be developed further and used to intimidate the society