Hoteliers and tour operators like to describe the pictured beach as “idyllic”.
Ifaty is a village in southwestern Madagascar; fishing is its raison d’être., although tourism has become increasingly significant in recent years.
Its seafront “lagoon” is sheltered by one of the world’s major coral reefs.
On the reef’s far side is the Mozambique Channel, which is 1,700 ks long, 419 ks wide at its narrowest point, and surprisingly deep – up to nearly 3,300 metres, with an average depth of around 2,700 metres.
I took the photo just before midday on 19 May 2018, as the big daily event was unfolding.
Until a few decades ago, this event often would have been “idyllic”, as Vezo fishers came home at lunchtime, their boats fully laden.
Theirs is one of the world’s materially-poorest lands, and living off the land in Madagascar’s southwest is particularly difficult; this region is very hot, highly drought-prone.
Malnutrition, hunger – even death by starvation – are not rarities, here.
For many generations, the “traditional” fishers and their families were probably the “luckiest” local “common” people.
Edible marine life was abundant, just offshore. The fishers did not have to sail far, their families ate very well and they had plenty of fish to sell.
Key word: “overfishing”.
Substantial growth in the number of motorised vessels operating in the Mozambique Channel region between East Africa and Madagascar in the past 65 years has led to a 60-fold increase in effective small-scale fishing effort and a 91 per cent decline in Catch Per Unit of Effort (CPUE).
(click this for full article)
Those figures are some years old; assuredly, the current reality is even worse.
I took the photo from the deck of a restaurant where we were served a delicious array of local seafood.
Intentionally, we over-ordered, so that local people would also be able to eat some of what we were enjoying.
By 2018 the “premium quality” portion of the local fishers’ greatly-diminished catch had become so meagre that the fishing villagers could no longer afford to eat any of it.
Click this to read Chasing the Far, Far Away Fish – a vivid, well-illustrated account of how life has so greatly changed in southwestern Madagascar’s fishing villages.
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