Silencing the Dynamite Fisheries along the Tanga Coast, Tanzania

Abstract

The Tanga Region is the most northern coastal region of Tanzania encompassing the threecoastal Districts of Muheza, Pangani and Tanga Municipality. The region extends 180 kmsouth from the Kenyan border and supports a number of ecologically important and diversehabitats including coral reefs, mangrove forests, seagrass beds and coastal forests. It isimportant as a turtle feeding and nesting area and provides feeding grounds for over 1% ofthe world's population of crab plovers (Dromas ardolea). Reef development along the coastis broken with 41 distinct sections of coastal fringing reef, and a total of 55 patch reefsalong the length of the coast (Figure 1). Thirty of these patch reefs are adjacent to thecontinental shelf (outer patch reefs) with 25 patch reefs (inner patch reefs) located inshallow water (less than 25 m) between the coast and continental shelf. In total there are 96reefs in Tanga covering 376 km. Studies of the condition of the Tanga Region's reefs have been sporadic. Early work tended tobe descriptive (Ray 1968; UNEP 1989) and/or sampled a small proportion of the reefs in alocalised area (Ray 1968; IUCN 1987; UNEP 1989). Nonetheless an impression of how someof these reefs have changed can be gained from Ray's (1968) description of some of the reefsadjacent to Tanga town as being among the best along Tanzania's coastline. By 1987 however,this situation had drastically changed. A study undertaken by IUCN concluded: 'the reefs areextensively damaged throughout the Tanga Region. In most areas a percentage cover of livecorals of less than 20% was recorded. In some areas live coral cover was less than 10%. OnNiule reef (leeward side) a live coral cover of less than 1% was estimated' (IUCN 1987).