KAPOKA (Zambia), 5 April 2011 (IRIN): A village a few hundred metres from Lake Tanganyika, which holds nearly one-sixth of the world’s available fresh water, has turned its back on fishing in favour of farming.
In just over two years Kapoka, with around 8.000 people in 1.000 or so households, has forsaken a traditional fishing culture that engaged three-quarters of its economically active inhabitants for generations. They had always cultivated a few crops – cassava, rice, sweet potatoes – now, 90 percent are farming.
Why the switch? – The fish are finished and there is money in farming, David Ngandu, who used to be a fisherman, told IRIN.
The Lake Tanganyika Integrated Management Project (IMP) – sponsored by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environment Facility, an independent fund – wants to alleviate pressure on Lake Tanganyika by reducing overfishing and erosion, which has led to increased sedimentation and pollution, and instead encourage sustainable farming practices.
Zambia’s local implementing partner for the IMP is the ministry of tourism and environment, with assistance from the ministries of agri-culture, forestry and fisheries.
A document from UNDP, “Safeguar-ding Africa’s Freshwater Jewel: Lake Tanganyika”, notes that the continent’s largest body of fresh water is a “closed basin, it takes 7.000 years for water to get flushed through evaporation (fordampning), making pollution permanent in relation to human life times.”
The lake’s waters are shared by Zambia, Burundi, the DR Congo and Tanzania, with the hub of commercial fishing located in the north Zambian town of Mpulungu.
All four countries are part of the IMP, established in 2008 with a 13 million US dollar budget for the pilot phase, which runs until mid-2012.
Zambia receives 2,4 million, plus an additional 400.000 from UNDP, even though its territorial claim on the lake is 6 percent, Burundi’s is 8 percent, the DR Congo controls 45 percent and Tanzania 41 percent.
The lake’s biodiversity has few peers (savner sin lige) – more than 1.500 species of fish, invertebrates (hvirvelløse dyr) and plants – “50 of which are endemic (findes kun her), without close relatives outside the basin due to the very long history of isolated evolutionary processes at work,” the UNDP document noted.
The fishing industry brought infrastructural development to Mpulungu, which lies about 10 km south of Kapoka.
It has an electricity supply – although erratic at times – an established commercial fish-packaging industry and roads that take the produce to large markets, including the Zambian capital, Lusaka, about 1.000 km away.
Increasing yields
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