https://youtube.com/watch?v=6bMnMcAmNvc
Some time back, in the 1960s, someone had the brilliant idea to introduce Nile Perch into Lake Victoria. The voracious predator soon went to work eating everything, until there was not much left in the entire lake but Nile Perch and crocodiles.
But there’s always an upside to these things, isn’t there? According to Wikipedia, "The fish’s introduction to Lake Victoria, while ecologically negative, has stimulated the establishment of large fishing companies there. In 2003, Nile perch earned 169 million euro in sales to the EU. Another income is the sport fishing tourism in the region of Uganda and Tanzania which aim to catch this fish." Funny how ecological negatives can be so economically positive, eh?
This booming multinational industry of fish and weapons has created an ungodly globalized alliance on the shores of the world’s biggest tropical lake: an army of local fishermen, World Bank agents, homeless children, African ministers, EU-commissioners, Tanzanian prostitutes and Russian pilots. — DarwinsNightmare.com
Now I’m sure the average burger-munching, TV-hypnotized, couch-ape would think "That’s gotta be a good thing!" and go back to sleep, and maybe it’s a matter of perspective, because there’s another highly profitable industry making a killing from this disaster. Huge Jet planes, including Soviet made Ilyushin Il-76 cargo planes fly in to carry the processed fish back to European supermarkets. But the fish are just back load; the real cargo is what they carry in to the uncontrolled Mwanza airfield in Tanzania. Can you guess? Machine tools, perhaps? Farming machinery? Wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, watering cans? Children’s toys?
The film opens with a Soviet made Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane landing on Mwanza airfield in Tanzania, near Lake Victoria. The plane came from Europe to ship back processed fillets of Nile Perch, a species of fish introduced into Lake Victoria that has caused the extinction of hundreds of endemic species.
Through interviews with the Russian and Ukrainian plane crew, local factory owners, guards, prostitutes, fishermen and other villagers, the film discusses the effects of the introduction of the Nile perch to Lake Victoria, how it has affected the ecosystem and economy of the region. The film also dwells at length on the dichotomy between European aid which is being funneled into Africa on the one hand, and the unending flow of munitions and weapons from European arms dealers on the other. Arms and munitions are often flown in on the same planes which transport the Nile perch fillets to European consumers, feeding the very conflicts which the aid was sent to remedy. As Dima, the radio engineer of the plane crew, says later on in the film: the children of Angola receive guns for Christmas, the children of Europe receive grapes. The appalling living and working conditions of the indigenous people, in which basic sanitation is completely absent and many children turn to drugs and prostitution, is covered in great depth; because the Nile perch is fished and processed for export, all the prime fillets are sold to European supermarkets, leaving the local people to survive on the festering carcasses of the gutted fish. As to why the local fish can’t be sold to the domestic market to counter the impending famine (local news reports relayed in the film indicated Northern and Central Tanzania were facing famine), one fish processing factory manager explains "it is too expensive". — Wikipedia
Watch the documentary. I recommend it, but you might need some chamomile tea…. It made me hopping mad when I first saw it. Still does.
Further Reading:
- Why are the FAO and the EBRD Promoting the Destruction of Peasant and Family Farming?
- The Peasants Are Revolting
- Food Miles, or ‘Fair Miles’
- Orchestrating Famine – a Must-Read Backgrounder on the Food Crisis
what a great documentary…. the truth finally comes out with the hopelesness and despair going on in the lives of the African people. What a project it would be to bring some beauty and environment and hope into their lives and do measures to bring back the lake. I would love to hear some ideas on what could be done there.The movie inplied that the lake would soon have no fish at all as they are eating each other.. what will become of these people? Maybe that is the good thing the perch will die out and the lake could be brought back from the Darwinian nightmare. In this case again Darwins theory of the survival of the fittest fails as survival of those systems that cooperate do eventually win out. there are a lot of inputs still available to begin to create a life dependant more on the land and farming than the lake until it comes back..which may take years. I am rambling …I’d love to hear a lot of ideas how permaculture could be used on this massive scale to bring some dignity to these people as they will be totally abandoned when the fish are gone. Sam
May I advice to be very cautious as to whether the facts shown or subjected (plenty of them) in this film are truthful. The wikipedia article in French language (one click away from the English version quoted above) refers to the fierce debate that followed the film. It is called a ‘documentaire de création’, as the director, Hubert Sauper, took the liberty of painting a black picture of the situation… at the expense of the truth sometimes and surely of the people appearing in this movie. Maybe some Tanzanian readers could describe us the situation near Lake Victoria more accurately and truthfully.
I don’t read French very well but it seems there are some disturbing criticisms of the film presented on Wikipedia and I thank you for pointing it out to me. Everyone has their own version of reality usually colored by their conscious or unconscious agendas.I am too trusting sometimes of what I see in the media. I did get rid of the tv which I recommend to everyone. Still it seems the problem of taking fish out and arms in might be fact and the degradation of Africa along with the rest of the world is disturbing and I look to permaculture for whole system solutions to these problems.