By Hereward Holland
KIMWABI ISLAND, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – Stephane Nzuzi Ndeka slipped into the coffee-coloured water and emerged, around 30 seconds later, gasping for breath with a fistful of bibwati, clams that grow in the maze of waterways that make up Democratic Republic of Congo’s mangrove forest.
“It’s not easy, because sometimes you go down and find nothing. Other times you don’t have enough breath to collect all the clams,” Nzuzi said.
Nzuzi is a member of the Assolongo ethnic group, a community granted special permission to live and fish in Mangrove Marine Park, a protected reserve where the Congo River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
With the bibwati, shrimp and fish that he catches from his dugout boat, Nzuzi is able to feed his family and have enough left over to sell in the nearby town of Moanda, earning $40 to $100 per month.
But the traditional livelihoods of the Assolongo are being squeezed as the park’s management tightens regulations in an effort to save a mangrove ecosystem that acts as a natural defence against storm surges, tsunamis, rising sea levels and erosion.
Making charcoal from the mangroves and consuming endangered turtles or manatees are off limits now.
“The manatee tastes good, but these days, with all these restrictions, we can’t do it any more. If you try, you go to jail,” Nzuzi said.
Relations between Assolongo villagers and the eco-guards from the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) are friendly. Nzuzi said he understood the environmental reasons for these measures, although he would prefer to live without them.
The ICCN says the community will benefit from its conservation strategy, which aims to attract tourists to explore the mangroves and admire the thousands of clam shells that pave the alleyways between bamboo shacks, bleaching white in the sun and clinking underfoot.
But for Nzuzi and many others from Kimwabi, his village, the pay-off from selfie-snapping tourists has yet to materialise. Construction of a promised cold-storage facility, school and hotel has not begun.
“The people who fixed these rules and told us not to hunt any more didn’t bring us any compensation,” he said.
David Mbuli, an ICCN researcher, said the conservation strategy would both help protect the fauna and flora, and preserve the ecosystem from which fishermen like Nzuzi make a living.
“It’s important to protect the park because the people depend on it,” he said.
(Reporting and writing by Hereward Holland; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
