Paddle your own canoe
'If you don't have a canoe,' says Michel Adjibang, 'you'll
always remain poor'. This is a fact of life in Ere – a village lying on the
banks of the River Logone, surrounded by flooded rice fields in Chad. This
7,000-strong community relies on a precarious combination of fishing and farming
for its livelihood. Nets are essential too, along with the smoking ovens which
preserve the fish for taking to market.
Michel Adjibang is the president of Walta, a community-based organisation whose
name means 'to take responsibility for yourself'. This is precisely what they
are doing with the support of the DFID-backed
Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods
Programme (SFLP) in West Africa managed by theFood and Agriculture
Organisation.
At the fishermen's request a new canoe-building technique has been developed
using locally available planks – easier to use and kinder on the environment
than earlier craft hewn from increasingly scarce tree trunks. Trainers have
shown local carpenters how to build the canoes, and a micro-credit scheme helps
fishermen buy canoes and nets.
'With what I earn from fishing, I invest a part of it in farming,' says one
fisherman. 'I even get to hire extra hands sometimes. Today my children are in
school; and it is what I earn from fishing that even helps me to care for
myself'.
A fishy business
A visit to the Cameroon identified a new design of the
fish-smoking oven allowing more fish to be smoked to a higher standard, using
less fuel and providing protection from the elements and foraging animals. Sixty
local women formed a fishmongers' group receiving credit facilities for building
ovens and buying fish.
'Before I bought fish… but only in small quantities', says Kady Alhere Bitrus.
'This could not get me very far. But the loan changed all that. Now we even go
as far as N'Djamena (the capital of Chad), with a large quantity of our smoked
fish. And we get a good price'.
Trading around Lake Chad
The capacity to improve and expand fisheries in this village is emblematic of
what SFLP is developing across the Lake Chad basin. This Lakeland region which
covers some 2000 sq km and a further 4000 sq km of swampland, contains 140
species of fish. Thousands of small scale, informal fisheries comprise a
valuable trade linking the Lake Chad Basin inland fisheries to the urban markets
of southern Nigeria – producing around 119,000 tonnes of processed fish a year
to the value of $54 million. These operations run by nationals from the six
states which share the lake and river sides (Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad,
Central Africa Republic and Sudan), give the trade a major regional and
international significance.
Training and micro-credit have made a vital difference to livelihoods in Ere and
news of the improved ovens has spread across Chad. The Walta group has
entertained many visitors eager to discover this new technology and improve
their own prospects of profitable trade and a better quality of life.
Key facts
- This was a DFID-funded project that began in August 2002 and ended in July of 2005
- The total budget of the project was $16,540 (USD) and came under the regional Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme funded by DFID, and implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and 25 countries in West and Central Africa.
