17 December 2007
Maputo — As from 2008, the Mozambican government plans to extend the closed season in the prawn fisheries from the current three and a half months to five or even six months.
Fisheries Minister Cadmiel Muthemba, interviewed in Monday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias", said this would not affect the current closed season, which began in November, and will end on 28 February. But the next closed season will begin in October 2008 and continue until the end of February 2009.
The purpose of the closed season is to allow the prawns to reproduce and to reduce the impact of fishing on the prawn stocks. The warning signs, in the shape of reduced catches, and lower average size of prawns caught, have been clear for some years, showing that the prawn stocks in the country's richest fishing grounds, the Sofala Bank, are under great pressure.
The owners of the industrial trawlers have agreed with measures to ensure the sustainability of prawn stocks, including a longer closed season, when no fishing is allowed.
"It's been agreed that we can start the closed season in October", said Muthemba. "There are those who suggest we should have a six month closed season. But we shall see how the fishing season that starts in March goes. In June or July we shall have a clear idea of what we can do".
The fishing companies have come to accept that trawling must be reduced, otherwise the Sofala Bank prawn stocks will be exhausted. This decision has clearly been influenced by two financial factors: the world market price of prawns and the price of the diesel that powers the fishing ships. The former has been falling while the latter rises.
Cheap prawns from Latin America, particularly those farmed on land rather than caught at sea, have pushed prices for the crustacean down. The ship-owners have meanwhile been faced with sharp rises in the cost of diesel, which now accounts for over 50 per cent of their operational costs.
This year, said Muthemba, about 20 per cent of the vessels licensed to fish for prawns did not put to sea. The reduced number of vessels may be part of the reason for an increase in average daily catches this year. Muthemba said that while in August and September 2006, the average daily catch per vessel was 500 to 600 kilos, in the same period this year, it rose to around 800 kilos.
The closed season is one of several measures taken to preserve stocks. Among the others are limits on the size of mesh in the nets used so that these do not catch juveniles, and a decision in 2001 to close the prawn fisheries to new vessels.
Not everyone who reported on the Minister's interview understands the meaning of the term "closed season" ("epoca de defeso" in Portuguese). The Macau-based news service Macauhub, which reports on economic matters in the Portuguese speaking world, committed a particularly egregious mistake on Monday morning when it claimed that the fishing season is being extended - exactly the opposite of the measure taken.
Muthemba also admitted that the monitoring of Mozambique's territorial waters by satellite was "very defective". This system is supposed to keep track of 74 licensed vessels on which tracking devices were installed. But the British company operating the system has simply not kept the Mozambican fisheries authorities informed (despite payment of around three million dollars for the system).
The company was supposed to liaise with the Mozambicans via its director in Mozambique. But he died and was not replaced. "As from then we began to have many difficulties in contacting the company and in compliance with the contract", said Muthemba. The expected reports were not sent to the Fisheries Ministry or to the Fisheries Research Institute (IIP).
When the Ministry complained, the company at first claimed the system was not working properly because the ship-owners had sabotaged the tracking equipment. The Mozambicans found this hard to believe, and contracted a consultant who investigated and found that the problems lay with the company in London, rather than with the fishing companies.
A "difficult" meeting was held with company representatives in London, at which it was agreed that the company would correct all the defects the Mozambican side had noted, but this will not happen until the 2008 fishing season.
The only leverage the Mozambican government has over the company is that it has not yet finished paying for the system. "We managed to bring them to the table because we should have made more payments last year, but we refused to do so until they solved all the problems", said Muthemba.
Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Read comments. Write your own.
