Hungry tide makes meal of idyllic haven

ANY day now, they say Dar es Salaam's Kanduchi Beach hotel is going to crumble into the sea. Where once endless sandy beaches stretched in front of the hotel, today the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean lap ominously close to its Moorish Pavilion.

A double room can be had for $45 a night but even at the height of the tourist season there were no occupants in the state run hotel this week. But at least the Kanduchi is still open the faded grandeur of two nearby resort hotels has already succumbed to rising sea levels because of the erosion of the coastline.

The situation neatly sums up Tanzania's plight. The country has all the right ingredients for successful tourism, yet the industry has failed to take root. Worse still, it now seems set to go into further decline. Indeed the same could be said for the overall economy.

Two hundred miles north of Dar es Salaam, in the small coastal district around Tanga, the problems are even worse. Here there is no tourism industry, even though, only half an hour to the north, rich Europeans flock in their thousands to the resorts around Mombasa in Kenya.

In Kanga however, the community depends on fishing for a living but stocks have declined drastically just as the population has started exploding.

The main culprits are the poachers who lay sticks of dynamite underwater to blast the fish to the surface. This also destroys the coral reef and leaves the coastline open to erosion.

Other problems are more familiar to Irish ears. The use of monofilament nets has decimated fish stocks. Trawlers from Spain and other EU states scoop up massive quantities of fish. Many are interested only in shrimp and dump the rest. Local fishermen with their sail powered shows fashioned from hollowed out mango trees simply cannot compete.

Coastal erosion is made worse by the destruction of the mangrove forests. This prized hardwood thrives in salt water beaches and lagoons. In Tanga, gangs of lumberjacks steal in by night to fell the mangroves which command high prices for use in house building, especially in the Middle East and Kenya.

These problems are now being tackled by the Tangan Coastal Zone conservation programme funded by Irish aid and operated jointly with the local authorities and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The programme, which was visited yesterday by the Minister of State for Overseas Co operation, Ms Joan Burton, aims to help the fishing communities manage what resources they have and develop new ones.

The self help principle which underpins Irish aid seems to be working well, to judge by the remarks of the regional commissioner for Tanga, Mr Hassy Kitine. "A lot of countries come in with their big projects, but almost the entire benefit of their aid seems to go back to their own country. Often there is a big bully type of attitude. But this project is not like that it is a showcase example of co operation," he told Ms Burton yesterday.

Ms Monica Gorman from Baltinglass, Co Wicklow, and colleagues from Britain, Australia and the Netherlands have helped the villagers draw up their own conservation and development plan. The community has been encouraged to search for solutions locally before seeking outside assistance.

This approach is slowly producing results. Anti dynamiting patrols have been formed to police the local waters, and now the dull thud of underwater explosions is seldom heard. As a result, fish are returning to areas they formerly avoided.

Far out on the beach, amid rock pools filled with starfish, anemones and molluscs, women harvest beds of seaweed which are being developed as an alternative source of income. The seaweed is bought by two pharmaceutical multinationals which pay pitifully low prices, about 9p a kg. Small as it is, though, the women say they are grateful for an independent source of income.