Boston Review Books

The story of Tanzania’s people’spark

Christine J. Walley

8 I first heard the explosions in 1994 shortly after I arrived on Chole, the smallest island in Tanzania’s Mafia archipelago. Mafia (a name derived from an archaic KiSwahili form, ma-afya, suggesting a healthy place) is part of a long string of islands that line the East African “Swahili” coast. Although its blue ocean, white sands, and coconut trees delight the trickle of international tourists who visit this remote spot, Mafia is also a much neglected district in one of the poorest countries in the world.

While conductinganthropological field research on Chole during the mid-1990s, I alsoworked as a volunteer English teacher. On the afternoon I first hearda blast, I was teaching English phrases to a dozen or so day laborersat the island’s only tourist hotel. I was unable to identify thefar-off rumble, but the men angrily turned their heads and listened.They told me that the sound came from underwater dynamiting, anillegal fishing technique that stuns or kills the fish, which thenfloat to the surface and are scooped into boats. Each blast can yieldlarge harvests with minimal (although risky) effort, but the practicedestroys the coral reefs that shelter and provide food for marinelife (reefs are known on Mafia as the nyumba ya samaki, or “home ofthe fish”). The men, most of whom supported their families byfishing, blamed the dynamiting on interlopers from Dar es Salaam andcomplained that it was threatening their livelihood by turning theunderwater landscape to jangwa, or desert.

The passionate reactionof these men foreshadowed a larger drama that would soon emerge. Thisdrama originated in the early 1990s, when national and internationalplanners chose Mafia as the site of Tanzania’s first nationalmarine park. In a country in which nearly a quarter of the land masshad already been devoted to wildlife parks and other forms of naturereserves, the Mafia Island Marine Park was conceived as a new kind ofpark, one that planners hoped would be emulated in other parts of theworld. Largely funded by international organizations, the park soughtto spur both conservation and development by encouragingenvironmental tourism. It was also the first national park inTanzania to allow residents full legal rights to live within itsboundaries, and it promised islanders the ability to participate inthe management of the park, thereby ensuring respect for theirrights. Like so many global projects today, the park’s oversight bypowerful international organizations, presumed to be operating freeof national political influence and corruption, was held to be theguarantor of good intentions and sensitivity to localinterests.

Despite these hopeful foundations, a conflict rapidlyemerged among island residents, national officials, and internationalorganizations on Mafia, and dynamiting appeared at the heart of thatconflict. Park planners recognized that for the park to succeed, thedynamiting (and the environmental and economic degradation it caused)would have to be stopped. But the various groups involved on Mafiaoffered very different explanations of who the dynamiters were andwhy this illegal method of fishing was so difficult to halt. Whilerepresentatives of international organizations identified poverty asits underlying cause, national-government officials blamed localignorance about the environment and inadequate regulation. As amatter of course, both groups assumed that Mafia residents were amongthe dynamiters. Island residents offered a very differentexplanation. Not only did they assert that the dynamiters were fromDar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city, but also that dynamitefishermen operated with the complicity of government officials andnational elites. In short, although park planners presented themarine park as a simple managerial solution to both environmentaldegradation and poverty, dynamiting revealed the complex politicaland social forces at work. Indeed, dynamiting around Mafia offers apotent example of the power struggles that may underlie environmentaldegradation and that are regularly ignored in the official accountsof both national governments and international organizations.

Likethe dynamiting itself, Mafia’s history challenges easy assumptionsoften made by Americans and Europeans about rural people who live inwhat used to be called the Third World. Literature for the marinepark and the nascent international tourism industry often celebrateMafia’s “traditional” and “untouched” character anddescribe its marine environment as “pristine.” Mafia residentsthemselves, however, lament their current isolation and poverty, anddescribe the contemporary period as one of maisha magumu, or “thetough life.” Out of Mafia’s many scattered villages, home tonearly 40,000 inhabitants, only two have phones and electricity.Transportation to the rest of Tanzania (and the world beyond) isnotoriously difficult. Tourists predominate on the erraticallyscheduled six-seater airplanes that land on a tiny sand airstrip inthe district capital of Kilindoni, while the overloaded cargo shipthat once stopped periodically at Mafia has recently begun to skipthe region altogether. Within the Mafia archipelago, a handful ofmotorized vehicles grind to a halt when the rainy season turns theunpaved roads to mud, leaving a dwindling fleet of leaky woodensailboats as the primary form of transportation.

Mafia’s currentisolation offers a stark contrast to its former role as a center ofworld trade. Along with other areas of the East African coast, Mafiaonce formed an integral part of the dynamic Indian Ocean tradingworld and served as an intermediary region between mainland Africa,the Middle East, and Asia, as traders (and slave sellers) plied themonsoon winds in their wooden dhows. When Chole residents recount thehistory of Mafia, they point to the islands’ crumbling medievalruins whose builders included Shirazi Persians, theexport-oriented coconut plantations of 19th-century Omani Arabs,and the customs house where European colonialists attempted toregulate ancient trade routes. Contrary to the theory thatpresent-day globalization is creating a more tightly integratedworld, Mafia, with its cosmopolitan history, has instead becomeincreasingly isolated over the course of the 20th century.

Thecurrent reliance of Mafia’s residents upon the sea also fails toreflect a “traditional” or isolated past. Since the 19th century,Mafia islanders have depended upon copra, or dried coconut, as theirprimary export to world markets. The recent collapse of the copratrade, however, and the growing need for cash (as international andinternal pressure transforms Tanzania’s economy from state-centeredsocialism to free market neo-liberalism) have brought about dramaticchanges. In the grip of an increasingly precarious “tough life,”islanders have turned their attention to the ocean. Although driedfish has been traded along the coast for centuries, only recently hasfresh fish become an important source of cash, with refrigerated“ice boats” now making periodic visits to Mafia to buy fish forconsumers in Dar es Salaam.

Just as the technical andmanagerial focus of the marine park draws attention away from thecomplex history of the region and its residents, it also obscures thesocial and political tensions that erupted into widespreadcontroversy during the park’s formation between 1995 and 1997—aconflict in which dynamiting plays the lead role.

*  *  *

In 1995, Ifirst met David Holston, a lanky Australian, in a chance encounter atKilindoni’s airport. (All the names used in this article, including“Maritime Division,” are pseudonyms.) At the time, I only knewthat Holston was employed by the largest international organizationworking on Mafia, the World Wide Fund for Nature (known as WWF).Holston’s job as technical adviser was to share jointresponsibility for setting up the marine park along with a Tanzaniangovernmental counterpart. Later, Holston revealed to me that somenational officials were opposed to implementing the park’sparticipatory aspects. A non-KiSwahili-speaker, Holston also worriedthat Mafia’s villagers did not support the project’s goals.Although I knew that many residents had initially opposed the idea ofa marine park (fearing restrictions on their own fishing practices),they had become strong supporters after being promised rights toparticipation as well as patrols to help end illegal fishing. Takenaback by the apparent lack of communication, I offered my services asa translator and suggested that Holston visit tiny Chole Island tomeet informally with some of its residents.

In July, severalweeks later, Holston arrived on Chole. Mzee Maarufu, the villagechairman, immediately sent word around the village that the mzungu(European) from the marine park was visiting Chole and that alladults not working off the island that day should gather for ameeting at the schoolhouse on the waterfront. On an island where onlya handful of people possessed watches and where tides, winds,prayers, and meal times instead structured the pace of daily life, Ihad long since learned that gathering people for meetings was anextremely slow process. As a result, we were surprised to find 30 orso people waiting expectantly for Holston at the schoolhouse—astriking turnout for an unplanned event.

Despite theemphasis along the East African coast on etiquette and socialdelicacy, the questions at the meeting came with unusual sharpness:If the point of the marine park was to “protect” the sea, why wasthere as yet no patrol boat? Why was the governmental MaritimeDivision, which had been put in charge of the new park, patrollingthe area around Kilindoni rather than the other side of the island,where the fish were concentrated? Why, when villagers traveledpersonally to Kilindoni or sent messages to alert the MaritimeDivision that dynamiting was in progress, were their requests forassistance ignored? These direct questions spurred forthrightness inreturn. Holston confessed that he had been prohibited from speakingwith villagers without the presence of Maritime Division officers,and he asked that the meeting be kept confidential. He responded tothe ensuing snickers and looks of disgust by acknowledging thatalthough he sympathized with residents’ complaints, his hands weretied; he could not act alone.

Those at the meeting appreciatedHolston’s frankness. However, when he conveyed yet anotherimportant piece of information—that the Maritime Division wasplanning to relocate the temporary marine-park headquarters to thecapital, Kilindoni, outside the park’s boundaries, outright angerand disbelief ensued. Several people stood up to protest, saying thatthey were well aware that wageni wanakula tu, “the visitors justeat” (wageni is a reference to centrally appointed governmentofficials in Kilindoni, who come overwhelmingly from the mainland,while “eating” is a well-known metaphor for taking bribes).Clearly, Kilindoni represented an all-too-familiar site ofdisenfranchisement to residents, and the relocation of the headquarterssuggested an effort to shift control over the fledgling marine parkto government officials. When one young man stood up to bitterlyproclaim, “The ‘visitors’ have not yet understood that the parkis ours!,” he received widespread support from those gathered.Later, I learned that residents’ insistence that the park was“theirs” was not simply due to the promises of participation madeby international organizations but to their own understanding ofthemselves as wenyeji, or the rightful “owners” or proprietors ofthe area’s natural resources.

Holston encouraged those gatheredto let their views be known in Kilindoni. He further revealed thatthe Maritime Division was looking for a reason to dismiss him, aswell as the recently hired community-development staff member fromChole, presumably to stymie efforts to encourage the participation ofMafia residents within the park. The village chairman, Mzee Maarufu,responded to this revelation with disarming simplicity: “We willprotect you.”

Only later would I realize just how subversive thismeeting had been, inasmuch as it offered village residents anopportunity to speak with a crucial NGO representative without thepresence of government officials. While I had heard hints ofcorruption before, and would increasingly hear such comments thelonger I stayed on the island, this was the first time I encounteredexplicit charges that government officials were accepting bribes toignore dynamiting or even cooperating with dynamiters.

*  *  *

Butwho exactly were the dynamite fishermen in Mafia’s waters, and whywas it so hard to stop them? On a November afternoon a few monthsafter the meeting with Holston, I asked the marine park’s actingwarden, Pius Mseka, what he thought about the dynamiting. An officialin the national Maritime Division, Mseka had been transferred fromDar es Salaam to serve as the governmental counterpart to Holston.The decrepit state of the tiny storefront in Kilindoni that he usedas his makeshift office reflected the relative poverty of thenational government compared to the WWF. But to Mafia residents itwas equally clear that Mseka was a member of a national elite. Auniversity-educated Christian, he was—like many Kilindonigovernment officials—a member of a dominant mainland ethnic groupknown for holding decidedly ambivalent attitudes toward less-educatedcoastal Muslims.

Mseka offered a perspective that I wouldsoon learn was common among government bureaucrats. He told me thatseveral residents of Jibondo, the neighboring island to Chole, hadjust been apprehended for dynamiting, disproving, he claimed, the“myth” that Mafia residents did not participate in thisdestructive form of illegal fishing. Given the anger that Choleresidents regularly expressed about the dynamiting, I asked Mseka whyhe thought island residents would participate in the practice. Heassured me that Mafia residents were simply unaware of the impact ofdynamiting on the marine environment. How could it be otherwise, heasked, given the lack of education on this issue and the absence ofinformational meetings and awareness programs on television andradio? Although I listened in silence, his comments were strikinglyincongruent with the vivid descriptions that Chole’s fishermen gaveof the destruction that dynamiting caused the reefs. It also seemedodd to emphasize the lack of informational television programs on anisland where television sets were virtually nonexistent, electricitywas rare, and even radio batteries were beyond the means of mostresidents. Nonetheless, the acting warden insisted that lack ofeducation was the central problem and argued that it could beremedied with additional funding from international donors. As weended the meeting, he pressed me for information on organizations inUlaya (Europe) that might be willing to help.

In Mseka’s view,villagers’ lack of formal education, and their presumed lack ofknowledge more generally, formed the key to the “backward”economic state of the region. In Tanzania, such viewpoints havetheir roots in the ideas of late-colonial British bureaucrats andpost-independence socialist officials. According to thisperspective, education is the solution to “underdevelopment” andrequires intervention from international and national “experts.”Such accounts, however, also make it easy to dismiss Mafiaislanders’ knowledge of the marine environment and to obscure thepolitical motivations and accusations of corruption theyraised.

WWF as an organization offered its own perspectiveon dynamite fishing. According to the organization’s literature andpark reports, environmentally destructive practices in developingcountries such as Tanzania stem from poverty; the remedy is to create“alternative income” sources, including tourism. Given the lowwages, the seasonal work, and the relatively small number of new jobscreated by the tourist industry (fishing and farming, in contrast,are widely accessible), it was all too apparent that most families onMafia would see little benefit from this alternative-incomestrategy and would continue to rely heavily on natural resources.Although WWF representatives on Mafia privately acknowledged these realities, such distorted assumptions continued to drive theorganization’s “global” agenda as well as its plans for theMafia Island Marine Park.

When I returned to Chole afterinterviewing Mseka, a number of Chole residents (including a man whohad participated in the recent patrol) were already discussing theJibondo incident. They told me that the men apprehended by maritimeofficials were merely in the area of the dynamiting and had scoopedup fish remains after the actual dynamiters had left. Although it isimpossible to know the true story, Chole residents expressedwidespread sympathy for the men from Jibondo.

When I challenged myfriends on Chole about whether any Mafia residents ever participatedin the dynamiting, I received complicated answers. Given thatdynamiting was understood as a form of theft within the tightly knitvillages that formed the core of the marine park, many suggested thatsocial considerations prevented them from dynamiting. Exceptions tothe rule, they argued, were Makonde Christians, a poor lower-statusgroup which had more recently immigrated to Mafia from southernTanzania; socially ostracized individuals from Mafia (particularly“drunkards” who had relocated to Kilindoni); and a handful ofyoung men from tiny Bwejuu island (a notorious hideout for visitingdynamiters) who were persuaded to show dynamiters the best fishingspots or to rent them boats.

Although my friends may simply havebeen scapegoating marginal individuals, I believe that the key totheir response lay in the nature of their self-identification as agroup. Although coastal society has been known historically for itsability to assimilate people from a variety of backgrounds, thecommonplace distinction in Swahili coastal culture between wenyeji,the original inhabitants or “proprietors” of a place, and wageni,strangers or guests who have fewer rights, is important. Throughmarriage, wageni can assimilate relatively quickly into the thick webof social ties that link the families, villages, and islands ofsouthern Mafia. Such ties provide access to land and other naturalresources as well as economic support when times are difficult. Itwas this thick web of social interconnections that exercised informalcontrol over individual behavior. It was also these kinds ofconnections that appeared to discourage Mafia’s wenyeji from takingpart in dynamiting, and thereby risking the anger of friends andfamily upon whom they depended. According to this logic, thoseoutside such networks, such as economically marginal young men,alcoholics in a Muslim society, or Makonde Christians who failed tointermarry, might be more willing to engage in activities that werepersonally profitable but anathema to other Mafia residents.

Thegeneral consensus, though, was that dynamiters were poor menoperating out of Kigamboni, the dock region of Dar es Salaam.Although this view appears to support WWF’s poverty thesis, myinformants also believed the dynamiters were wage laborers, hired byelites who provided the dynamite. Indeed, European expatriates in theregion gossiped that people at “high levels” were involved andthat the dynamite, illegal to purchase in Tanzania, came from roadand quarry projects sponsored by international donors. Although thesespeculations would be difficult to prove, if true, they suggested afar more complex social and political terrain than either governmentofficials or the WWF acknowledged.

*  *  *

In December of 1996 asleek double-engined Boston Whaler speedboat arrived in Mafia. Boughtby WWF to patrol the region’s waters, it represented a radicalbreakthrough to many Mafia residents. Previously, enforcement ofanti-dynamiting legislation (passed in the early 1970s) had comeunder the jurisdiction of the government’s Maritime Division, inconjunction with district police. I was told, however, that few hadever been convicted under this legislation on Mafia or anywhere elsealong the coast. Now, although Maritime Division staff and districtpolice officers still held the power of arrest, patrols were led byHolston, the only person who at that time knew how to operate the newboat and who had been trained in anti-dynamiting enforcementprocedures.

At a meeting called by WWF field staff shortlyafter the boat’s launching, Mafia village leaders named the boatthe Ukombozi, meaning “liberation” or “deliverance,” and muchto the delight of those living within the marine park, the patrolssoon had their intended effect. Within a month, eight dynamiters hadbeen arrested near Bwejuu Island in two separate incidents, and thedynamiting in Mafia’s waters appeared to stop. A young fisherman onChole, who like many other men sold his fish to an ice boat from Dares Salaam, said that former dynamiters were now working as laborerson the ice boat. One such man had told him that dynamiters fearedbeing arrested by the Ukombozi and had nicknamed Chole Bay “thejail.”

The success of the Ukombozi generated a flurry ofpublicity, newspaper accounts, and expressions of support for theMafia Island Marine Park, all praising the only successful effort tohalt illegal dynamiting within Tanzania and one of only a fewinternationally. An Italian camera crew even came to film the Ukombozi as part of a documentary, and the WWF field staff, Maritime officers, and district police spent a week simulating the arrests of dynamiters for the cameras. Not everyone was happy with the success of the Ukombozi. The chief security officer for Mafia District—an official unusually close to Holston—sent a memo to the WWF field staff warning WWF to hire additional security guards because of rumors about plans to sabotage the boat. He added, “I . . . suspect that a lot of prominent persons in Mafia and Dar-es-Salaam have suffered a big monetary loss since the arrival of this 230 HP boat.”

Strangely enough, the backgrounds of the arrested dynamiters were never mentioned—Holston and other WWF field staff admitted that they were unsure of who exactly had been apprehended. But a perusal of the district police report filed with the WWF office turned up not only their names but their ethnicities and places of residence. While half of the dynamiters were from Dar es Salaam, as people on Chole had claimed, others were listed as Mafia residents. Although all of the latter possessed common Muslim “Swahili” names, their ethnicity in each case was listed as “Makonde.” I could only surmise that these Makonde had taken Swahili names to ease their assimilation into coastal society, creating confusion among non-resident park officials. Although this information supported Mafia residents’ speculations, few in the marine park or WWF took notice since the identities of the dynamiters failed to figure into their accounts. For their part, Mafia residents simply appeared happy to have an end to the dynamiting.

After the Ukombozi’s debut, discussions of marine-park politics became strikingly more open, even within the hearing range of those Mafia residents who were rumored to be the paid informants of corrupt officials. As one fisherman from Chole explained, Holston had demonstrated “through actions rather than words” that he was serious in his opposition to dynamiting and thus gained the support of Mafia residents. Those living within the marine park now made pointed distinctions between the WWF and government branches of the marine park and began looking to WWF as a patron that would defend their interests against more powerful players. But such hopes would soon come to an end as a new series of events dramatically altered the course of the marine-park drama.

*  *  *

By 1997 more government officials in Dar es Salaam and Kilindoni were supporting WWF field staff and, indirectly, island residents. Perhaps the changes reflected the new level of accountability brought about by “multi-partyism” within Tanzania, or the park’s own publicity for its anti-dynamiting efforts. In any case, Mseka appeared increasingly marginalized on Mafia, the new district commissioner (the highest official on Mafia) was publicly critical of the Maritime Division’s role in the marine park, and villagers themselves were more assertive in their demands concerning the park.

Nonetheless, rumors were circulating that alarmed village leaders. When Mseka and other district officials requested to review Holston’s contract, rumors of a plot spread quickly. Residents as well as European expatriates speculated that the officials were looking for an excuse to fire Holston.

In February, Mafia residents, armed with renewed incentive to alter marine-park dynamics, made a calculated effort to do so during an official visit by Tanzania’s prime minister. At the customary open meeting held between national political leaders and district elders in Kilindoni, one elder—chosen by his peers as someone who could “speak freely” because he lived in a village safely outside of marine-park boundaries—delivered an angry speech:[Concerning] that dynamiting, we have been complaining long and hard about it. So we made a plan and we were brought an expert [Holston], praise be to God, we are grateful. But there are great battles being waged against us. [Mseka] wants to have that expert who has knowledge of this kind of work removed, and another one brought in. If we are brought this other person, we the citizens of Mafia will be dying [from lack of food]. Therefore, Mr. Prime Minister, we ask you that the European expert not be taken away from us here on Mafia so that he can protect us here on Mafia and our ocean.

Mafia’s new district commissioner, apparently supporting the villagers, elaborated for the prime minister:WWF has a patrol boat that goes out with the police patrol. They are catching those people who have been causing the destruction. Now in my reading of the situation, the people of [Maritime Division] have an interest [i.e. economic stake] in those dynamite fishers. Should that boat leave Mafia, the dynamiting will continue.

After the speeches the prime minister publicly charged the district commissioner to investigate the matter and report back to him.

Although many Mafia residents were heartened by this turn of events, others remained skeptical. One friend asserted that promises to investigate matters were common, but usually meant nothing; he would wait to see what the future would bring. In the end, his fears proved well-founded, although trouble would next emerge from a different quarter.

The same week of the prime minister’s visit, a report was faxed to the WWF regional office in Dar es Salaam with the recommendations of a review team sent to Mafia in January of 1997 by a Norwegian development agency, one of the park’s major funders. Composed of both Europeans and Tanzanians, the commission spoke primarily to official park personnel, meeting with village residents only in the presence of government officials. The report questioned Mseka’s competence and noted that “disturbing allegations have been made against the [acting warden] concerning forging of signatures and embezzlement of WWF funds.” The report acknowledged that Holston was “technically competent,” but argued that he “acts autonomously” and “behaves in an arrogant and contemptuous way towards the [acting warden] and others that disagree with him.” The review team recommended that “For the smooth running of the project in the future the [relevant Ministry] is advised to ensure the replacement of both the AW [acting warden] and TA [technical adviser] with immediate effect. It must be clearly stated that the MIMP [Mafia Island Marine Park] administration should have authority over the WWF TA in all park matters.”

The report resulted in Holston’s resignation and Mseka’s removal over the next six months. Although I have little information about how this report was received by the Maritime Division, it is clear that within WWF there were conflicting responses. While some of WWF’s international offices cited a crisis of confidence in Mafia’s park and threatened to withhold funding, the WWF-US office insisted that it was necessary to find a technical adviser who was more amenable to working with the Maritime Division. Ultimately, the latter view prevailed. For those in international and national offices, the conflict over the marine park was reduced to a managerial problem, a mere “personality clash.”

The refusal of international institutions to acknowledge the political undercurrents within the park meant implicit support for existing social hierarchy in Tanzania. While faulting Holston for acting independently, the report failed to acknowledge that his willingness to challenge entrenched, elite perspectives was for Mafia residents a defense of their interests. In short, the report validated a fiction central to the park: that national and local interests were always the same.

*  *  *

When I returned to Mafia in 2000, things had changed dramatically. WWF employees in Tanzania and abroad assured me that the Mseka–Holston conflict had been laid to rest (Holston had returned to Australia, while Mseka managed to obtain a prominent post elsewhere within the Maritime Division), and the park was now operating according to plan. Indeed, on Mafia the new warden was widely viewed as an honest individual who did not act pembeni, or “in the corners,” as had his predecessor. Dynamiting had also been held at bay in the ensuing years, much to the relief of island residents, and the divisions between WWF and the government marine-park staff had been largely eradicated. Consequently, I was taken aback when I met with fishermen from Chole and neighboring islands and heard a very different story.

Chole residents, who had so strikingly described the marine park as “theirs” in their early meeting with David Holston, now stated bluntly that they hated the park. One afternoon at Chole’s boatyard, several dozen fishermen spoke directly to my tape recorder, asking me to convey their viewpoints to distant offices and decision-makers. One fisherman said in slow and emphatic tones: “The marine park is no good. It is going to kill us through hunger.” Another elaborated:We say that the marine park is no good. The marine park is totally unacceptable. It has refused to cooperate with us and this is a problem. If they wanted to meet with us fishers, we could agree: in what areas should we preserve the fish? What areas should we leave [the marine park] for its activities? We could cooperate with them because we’re the ones who know the environment here, not those people from the marine park. . . . But if you tell me not to fish here, where will I fish? What kind of work will you give me today so I can continue my life? . . . It has to be today, not tomorrow. If it takes six or seven months before I get food, what am I going to do right now? What will my family eat? What will they wear? And if my children want to go to school, what will I do? . . . The marine park is killing us. Its goal is to reduce us to the worst kind of poverty.

Yet another individual suggested that promises of “participation” had been a hoax designed to gain their acquiescence to the park; now that the park was in place, the park staff felt free to do as it pleased.

How did such a sense of ownership and hope turn to radical disillusionment in three years? A number of factors seem to have contributed. Although tensions between WWF and the government marine-park officers had been resolved, and both sides were ostensibly united in the conservation of the environment, there was now no highly placed advocate for the interests of island residents. Indeed, the new warden acknowledged that given the low level of “education” about environmental issues on Mafia, he sometimes needed to act with what he later described as an “iron hand.”

Indeed, by 2000, marine-park officials had turned their attention to control over the fishing practices of island residents themselves. Although during the mid-1990s many fishermen expressed a willingness to discuss concessions regarding their own fishing techniques, their positions had now hardened. They were infuriated by changes to the original park zoning plan which were intended to increase environmental protection by further restricting Mafia residents from prime fishing grounds. Although the original zoning plan had included input from Mafia residents, the changes being considered in 2000 were unilaterally conceived by park officials and visiting experts with minimal involvement from residents. On Chole, this situation confirmed residents’ fears that their livelihoods were meaningless to park officials.

Tensions were further heightened by the increasingly difficult economic situation on Mafia. Facing depressed agricultural prices and a growing need for cash, residents had become ever more dependent on fishing. Yet fish populations continued to decline, partially due to the destruction of coral reefs caused by El Niño in 1997–1998 and to the recent appearance of visiting businessmen in Kilindoni who provided gear-less fishermen with destructive small-mesh nets. By 2000 the park had become an expanding and increasingly oppressive bureaucracy that residents felt threatened their very survival. Once their “liberator,” the patrol boat was now an oppressor, harassing them as they fished to feed their families. Just as official viewpoints ignored the political and social undercurrents associated with dynamiting, so too the assessments of the “people’s park” that I had heard in national and international offices in 2000 obscured the anger and increasing poverty found among park residents.

One afternoon in 2000, I sat with Issa Hamisi and his younger cousin in his grandfather’s fishing boat. Issa was an energetic young man who I’d met when he was still a teenager. On this day, the two mused about the hopelessness of fishing as a livelihood. The handful of fish one caught made it barely worthwhile: how could one marry and support a family?

Issa said he would like to use the family sailboat to take European tourists out on snorkeling day trips; he knew all the best places and the prettiest corals. But like other Chole residents, he had not had the opportunity to continue his education beyond primary school. The few words of English he knew were the ones he had picked up in my classes years earlier. He wondered how he would communicate with the tourists to get business. He also worried that the European hotel owners would be angry with him; after all, they were powerful people and preferred their guests to hire their own boats, which they rented at much higher prices.

Although his cousin mockingly referred to work in the tourist hotels, notorious for below-subsistence wages, long hours, and sometimes difficult conditions, as “donkey work,” Issa nevertheless hoped hecould find a job in a hotel in nearby Utende village. He knew he would be one of the lucky few if he could get such work. Indeed, those who managed to find jobs were so lucky that they were willing to endure the jealousy of neighbors and friends upon whom they otherwise depended (jealousy so bitter that hotel workers worried that witchcraft might be directed against them). But it was a risk Issa was willing to take.

While fishing had been open to nearly all men—even if one did not own a boat, one could work on the crew of another family’s vessel or fish from the shore or from canoes with handlines—the best chance for survival now was to obtain one of the few wage jobs. The tough life, maisha magumu, had become even tougher. <

Christine J. Walley is an associate professor of anthropology at MIT. She is the author of Rough Waters: Nature and Development in an East African Marine Park.

Originally published in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Boston Review