Case Study 1: LESSONS FROM RUFIJI DELTA

In 1996, African Fishing Company (AFC) - a Dar es Salaam based company owned by an Irish investor by the name of Reginald John Nolan - applied to be allocated some 10,000 hectares in the Rufiji River Delta to undertake industrial prawn farming. The Rufiji River Delta is located in southern Tanzania. It is by far the largest delta in Eastern Africa and contains the largest estuarine mangrove forest on the eastern seaboard of the African continent and is of considerable conservation and economic significance (Semesi, 1992; Francis, 1992). More importantly, the Delta region is home to over thirty thousand people who live, farm and fish in its fertile agricultural lands and rich fishing grounds (Fottland and Sorensen, 1997). The latter produce over 80 per cent of Tanzania's prawn exports with the entire catch being wild prawns (Gibbon, 1996).

Prawn farming has become a major industry in many tropical coastal states of the Third World. Its expansion has been propelled by the promise of enormous foreign exchange earnings from prawn exports and as a result many governments in the foreign exchange-starved countries of Asia and Latin America have been compelled to take measures in order to facilitate the growth of the industry (Kurien, 1997; Singh, 1997).

Prawn farming is considered one of the most resource intensive forms of food production. It depends on capture of post-larvae shrimp which are then transferred into prawn ponds which are often sited in mangrove areas. This is considered to be very destructive and the expansion of the industry has led to a tremendous pressure on wild stocks of post-larvae shrimp whilst destroying its breeding and feeding grounds by the conversion of the mangroves into ponds (Larsson, et al., 1994; Clay, 1997 & 1998). Mangroves also serve a variety of other important functions such as prevention of coastal erosion by encouraging soil deposition; providing food, shelter and sanctuary to aquatic organisms, birds and animals; as well as supporting important coastal and nearshore fisheries. They also supply herbal medicine, fuelwood and timber to local communities (Semesi, 1992).

As a form of production which requires huge capital inputs, prawn farming is mostly carried out by big corporate interests with the resources and necessary political clout to get state support in the form of land acquisition, technical support and financial incentives. Local communities of peasants and fisher-folks, on the contrary, have had neither the requisite resources nor the political leverage over the state and as a result have often been displaced from their lands by the powerful corporate prawn farming interests (Bailey, 1988; Gujja and Fingerstich, 1996).

Another major problem associated with industrial prawn farming is pollution. Investments in prawn farming are often characterized by absence of waste water treatment facilities; and as a result waste water effluents are often discharged into 'clean' water bodies from which the industry depends for fresh intakes of water. Rivers, estuaries and oceans thus serve simultaneously as sources of 'clean' water and as waste water 'sinks' and once these dual services are exhausted, the industry comes face to face with the negative 'feedback' costs in the form of outbreak of viral diseases and consequent production crashes.

The intake of saline sea water into the inland prawn ponds causes pollution of underground fresh water sources through seepage as well as affecting the productivity of neighbouring agricultural lands (Pullin et al., 1992; Vivekanandan and Kurien, 1997). In countries such as Thailand, according to a recent study, the industry - having all but destroyed the coastal mangrove areas - is now rapidly moving further inland and taking over the country's 'rice bowl' and intensifying pressure on agricultural and domestic water sources. It is thus not only spreading its destructive consequences over a much larger area, it is also exacerbating food insecurity among the country's rural population (Flaherty, et al., 1998).

It is not, therefore, surprising that corporate prawn farming has become a veritable battleground as it has attracted considerable controversy and opposition from social movements of the local people and environmental groups in many countries (Raj and Dharmaraj, 1996; Kurien, passim.) In India, for instance, the struggles against corporate prawn farming finally made it to the Supreme Court of India which is known for its innovative approach to issues of legal action and social/class justice. In its landmark decision in S. Jaganathan vrs. Union of India & others¹, the Supreme Court of India ordered a ban of industrial prawn farming in the entire country. This decision is particularly relevant for Tanzania in that the decisions of Indian superior courts and other common law jurisdictions, though not binding upon Tanzanian courts, are of high persuasive value and our courts frequently seek guidance and assistance therefrom in cases in pari materia.

The result of these developments have led to attempts by the industrial shrimp farming interests to try and relocate their activities in the coastal states of Africa which, as a rule, have not had any experience of the industry and are more vulnerable economically and politically. This is the context within which the Rufiji Delta Prawn Farming Project in Tanzania came into being and against which it is examined in this brief.

1. 1996(9) SCALE 167-216 per Kuldip Singh and Saghir Ahmad, JJ.