Mozambique fishing industry near collapse
by Charles Mangwiro
Date: 31-07-2008
Source: Reuters
Mozambique's fishing industry is on the verge of collapse due to constant rises in global fuel costs, a top official said. The National Director of Fisheries Administration, Ivone Lichucha, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday that about 51 engine boats of the 59 registered are no longer fishing due to their owners' inability to buy fuel.
"The (fishing) industry is heading to a near collapse, many fishermen can no longer make it to the sea. Constant increase in fuel prices is having a heavy impact while most of their boats are obsolete," Lichucha said.
The most common method, artisanal fishing, caters for the livelihoods of more than 100,000 families and supplies food for a large proportion of the country's 20 million people.
Lichucha said revenue from the sale of Mozambique's top fishing product, shrimp, had fallen from about $92 million in 2006 to $78 million in 2007, while quantities of other fishing exports including deepsea prawns, line fish, gamba and kapenta, had also shrunk.
Lichucha said fishing output was also being affected by increasing illegal fishing activities.
She said the government was negotiating with international co-operation agencies to obtain funds to purchase specialised vessels to monitor its 2,500 km coastline.
Mozambique recently seized a Namibian registered ship carrying tonnes of sharks illegally fished in its waters.The ship, named "Antillas Reefer", was seized off the coast of the central Zambezia province where fishing inspectors found 43 tonnes of sharks, four tonnes of shark fin, 1.8 tonnes of shark tail, 11.3 tonnes of shark liver and 20 tonnes of shark oil.
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©Reuters 2008
Theme(s):
Fisheries Development and Aquaculture
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