Fri, Dec 14, 2018 page6

• FEATURE: Madagascan polls shaken by Chinese fishing deal

  • AFP, ANAKAO, Madagascar
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  The sun glistens on waves lapping against wooden fishing boats as their sails ripples in the breeze coming off the Indian Ocean.

  Nearby a young man with a diving mask bobs below the water’s surface armed with a stick to lure his catch into a net while also trying to snare fish on a nylon line.

  In Anakao, a traditional fishing community in southwest Madagascar, the community known as Vezo — which means “rowing strength” — has fished for generations.

  

  A fisherman tends to his net in the waters opposite Anakao, a traditional fishing community in Madagascar, on Nov. 4.

  Photo: AFP

  However, the arrival last year of six fishing trawlers off the coast and a subsequent deal between a local private body that promotes Madagascan businesses and Chinese investors have stirred anger at a time when the country is going to the polls in presidential elections.

  “If this carries on, we’ll be eating sand,” said Fulgence, a fisherman in Anakao.

  He does not dare venture out when the six Chinese vessels are at sea, saying that a number of his nets have been cut.

  “The Chinese take everything and chuck the little dead fish back into the sea,” Marco Randrianjaka said, echoing the grievances of many of his fellow seafarers. “Without the small ones, they won’t be able to reproduce down the line.”

  However, China’s Mapro South, the company responsible for the vessels, denies the claims.

  Their nets’ mesh is large enough to allow the smaller fish to escape, said Li Lifujun, a company manager in Toliara, a port town one hour from Anakao by boat.

  Against the backdrop of an already tense situation locally and nationally due to the elections, a fisheries deal with Chinese investors has provoked an outcry on the island where malnutrition is widespread.

  The deal, which was not publicized, is understood to go much further than the six Chinese-funded trawlers already in operation.

  The US$2.7 billion agreement includes, among other things, 330 modern, refrigerated vessels up to 14m long being delivered to Madagascan fishers.

  They are to “replace the traditional wooden boats,” said the Madagascan Development and Business Promotion Agency (AMDP), which negotiated the deal with China’s Taihe consortium.

  The ships, supplied to local fishers free of charge, would help them “increase their production capacity,” said an AMDP official, who declined to be named.

  A proportion of fish caught by those participating in the scheme would be sold locally. The Chinese would buy the “surplus” at a favorable, but undisclosed price, the official said.

  The deal would promote “local development” in Madagascar, he added.

  The official blamed the outcry on the fishing community “prejudging” the project — something they deny.

  The 330 new boats are to eventually produce 130,000 tonnes of fish annually, according to the AMDP — about the equivalent of the nation’s entire production in 2016.

  “But we already face overfishing in some regions,” said Rijasoa Fanazava, a fisheries expert at the World Wildlife Fund in Madagascar.

  Fanazava believes that tens of thousands of fishers risk losing their livelihoods if stocks are diminished.

  “How will they live?” he asked.

  A roundtable that brought together the AMDP and 30 affected organizations failed to allay their fears.

  “The only impact assessments given by the AMDP have been economic in nature; we haven’t had anything on the environmental and social impacts of the project,” nonprofit groups said in a joint statement.

  The AMDP said that the deal provides for an environmental initiative to protect the sustainability of marine life off Madagascar’s coasts.

  However, campaign groups are “unconvinced” that the deal would truly create economic opportunities for local fishers and reiterated their opposition to the scheme.

  Even Madagascan Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Augustin Andriamananoro has his doubts — he said he was not even briefed on the deal.

  It was signed on the sidelines of a China-Africa cooperation summit in Beijing in September attended by former Madagascan president Hery Rajaonarimampianina just days before he resigned to contest the polls.

  He was knocked out in the first-round vote last month.

  The AMDP “can’t sell treasures which aren’t even theirs,” Andriamananoro said.

  “The deal isn’t at all legal” and should not be executed, added the minister, an ally of Andry Rajoelina, who is to stand in the second-round vote on Wednesday next week against Marc Ravalomanana.

  However, the AMDP, although reluctant to comment publicly, is adamant that the project will go ahead.

  The deal “is between two private companies from the two countries — it’s not an agreement between states,” the AMDP official said.

  The first Chinese-made trawlers are due to be delivered within a year.

  However, in Anakao, the fishing community fears “unfair competition.”

  “We’re already catching less and less,” Mananaina said. “Before, it was more than 20kg a day — now just 10.”

  “There’s simply not enough fish to feed everyone,” Fulgence added. “So why send them to China?”
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