Cape ltd. Tanzania Kilwa & Songo Songo Marine National Park

KILWA & SONGO SONGO MARINE NATIONAL PARK
INTRODUCTION:

Cape Ltd sees the need to create a Marine Park around each and every coral island/patch reef and coastal reef from the northern most one of Songo Songo Island, approx. 50 km north of the island, to Songo Manara Island. This would include approx. 42 patch reefs and approx. 80 km coastal reef. The main threat to the regions extremely rich marine life, especially the life around the patch reefs, is today's hungry and savage fishing boats'. Some companies containing several modern, well equipped and reasonably fast boats, others run a one boat show. Most of the companies threatening those reefs are not Tanzanian but rather European and Asian that are well linked to their home continents to where the catch more often then not is transported, often by plane. Everyone concerned, and even the ones that are not, have heard about the dynamite fishing that is and has taken place outside the Tanzanian coast, as a matter of fact one of the hardest hit regions is the coastal reef and the patch reefs north and south of Dar Es Salaam!

Now it may be said that "this is under control now", well how long has that been the case and what did it cost the nation's never to return marine life? We all know that once a reef is destroyed partially or totally it takes hundreds of years for it to grow back, if it at all ever manages to recuperate!? It is therefore clear that any type of commercial fishing close to corals cannot be permitted since also nets tear corals to pieces. We also now that there is a lot of monkey business involved in anything that is illegal, any sort of illegal fishing is just another such thing. That it is hard for any government to fight against well organized crime is no news, if the government like Tanzania's then lack resources, well then it is often a fight with "stones and sticks"!
Therefore we must do two things:
- First create that which is needed before it is too late/be prepared and faster then the "enemy",
- and secondly use all the resources we have together in order to preserve and protect those marine marvels! There is no other way, especially not for a Developing Nation such as Tanzania. I base my fears and knowledge on conversations with people, including "savage" European fishermen part of fishing operations in today's Tz, and upon my own experiences.

This below one is just one of them. I have been a fisherman in the Baltic Sea, we were fishing Salmon with nets, each net was 500 m long and we used to lay out 25 such nets during a time-span of 12 or so hours depending on the sea. That makes a distance between the first and the last net of 12.5 km , not including the distance between the nets. To get from the last net to the first could take anywhere from just over one hour to three hours, which left plenty time for especially Russian fishing boats to steal a net worth 4.000.000 Tsh and be on their way to their own fishing waters' limit. Those incidents sometimes ended in fire fights.
back to top

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

* Create one large marine park in the region that consists of each and every patch reef's and coastal reef's secluded park. Each patch reef's protected area should surround it by 100 m out from its low tide mark or in the case of the shallow ones down to their deepest point not exceeding 40 m. A permanent under water patch reef should be protected by encircling coordinates that protects it down to 60 m depth. The coastal reef should be protected in the same manner.
* No tourist operator or other is permitted to use any kind of motor for transportation of his/her vessels within the protected areas.
* All tourist operators attaining operations within the protected area have to have an easy accessible regulations and education manual in its vessels and its lodgings. They are 100% responsible for each and every guest's education in what to do and not to do as well as their knowledge in the regulations.
1. Each operator is obliged to bring along one local guide/five guests on each trip. The guides, women and men, are first of all to be recruited amongst the people within the tour operator's neighboring fishing village(s) and neighboring coconut farmers. Tour operators as well as future guides are to undergo the education and training given by the civil part of a Marine School to be situated in the region. The school's subjects are: marine life and how to behave around the different lifeforms; how to behave during dangerous incidents and how to treat accidents e.g. poisoning; first aid and life saving at sea; the Morse code; professional tasks and behaviors: service and language skills. Every guide's education is to be paid for by the tour operators, the education fees should be reasonable and based on each tour operator's estimated no. of guests/year that are to be brought within the park. As much as 50% of the fees should be channeled back into the park. N.B. The scouts education is mentioned under "Action Plan, First Phase".

2. The operators are to supply the guides with all necessary equipment as well as pay them a fixed price/trip. It is furthermore the guide's task to make sure that all guests have understood the regulations and the appropriate behaviour.

3. All tour operators have to carry short wave radio communication equipment, an all weather powerful boat and flares in the vessel that can be used during a trip to the park.

4. All operators have to report the following to the Marine Scouts before any type of trip takes place to the park: the vessel used, its destination, the duration of stay, the number of people and their planned activities.

5. Each tour operator has to buy his/her yearly park entry certificate from the school, which is based on the operators estimated no. of guests to be brought therein. Due to this the certificate's price may change if an operator's guest no. changes. The estimation's accuracy will be monitored, and if more guests than estimated have been brought then an additional fee is to be paid with the fee for the new certificate. All fees are to be channeled back into the park.

6. Tour operators are obliged to take an insurance against e.g. breaking of corral, which will cover them up to a certain sum, which should be fairly low, thereafter it is the guilty guest that is fined on a fair basis. Children will fall under a specific category. All fines are to be channeled back into the park.

7. The Marine Scouts and the people responsible for the Marine School are the guides' commanders and the ones in charge of the parks maintenance. To these the guides and the operators are obliged to, on a weekly basis, present separate written reports concerning their trips within the park. The reports should include: trip(s) destination(s) and more precisely the specific part(s) covered; how long the trip(s) lasted and when they took place, hour and day; number of guests that visited on each trip and what type of activities they performed e.g. diving, snorkeling; any positive and/or negative changes in the reefs' life; any change or special event that passed e.g. the spotting of whales etc.; breaking of the regulations by guests as well as by guides and/or operators; any emergency or other call to the Marine School and/or the Marine Scouts. (cont.) The school will thereafter study and share the material with the Marine Scouts who really are the ones that write the final reports.

* All commercial fishing, picking of shells, corals and other reef life is illegal and punished accordingly with fines, or/and forced labor. Tour operators and fishing companies may also be completely banned from the park respectively the region and in the worst cases have their business license confiscated and/or be expelled from Tz territory.

* Today's existing fishing communities are only permitted to continue with their old methods of fishing! Even those fall under the new laws.

* Each patch reef with a dry part, sand dune, during low tide should have a lighthouse made out of stone, bricks or/and concrete building blocks built upon its dune.
1. The first face of lighthouses are to be constructed in a strategically correct chain formation from the northern most patch reef to the southern most, with no more than 20 km between each. The total number built during this first face will not be less then five nor exceed eight.
2. The light houses are to be manned with four permanent Marine Scouts each. The scouts are to undergo a similar but stricter Marine School education as well as training within the following fields: military/navy including strategies and explosives, fishing techniques, communication, mechanics, electricity, electronics and diving.
3. Each light house and its Marine Scout unit ought to be equipped with/armed with, including the light house's light itself: an anti-air-strike type of search light, a short wave radio communication equipment with a minimum range of 100 km, two pairs of long-range binoculars, a tank rifle (big caliber - long distance) with a long-range telescopic sight, two 6 m long and open aluminum speed boats with one 80 Hp outboard/boat, four pairs of night vision binoculars, flares, light machine guns (navy specials), tools for mechanics, necessary spare parts, two sets of scuba diving equipments, four complete sets of snorkeling equipments, first aid treatment gear including a oxygen tank and a mask and finally marine blue uniforms.
4. The scouts do not move around with their boats unless necessary due to expenditures on gas, another reason why they are equipped as they are.
5. The scouts are to work in shifts within each unit and change outposts on a regular basis of two weeks.

* All fishing villages and people working coconut plantations in the immediate region will be included in affairs that are directly or indirectly connected to God's Plenty, Kilwa & Songo Songo Marine National Park. Their neighboring tourist establishments are to buy the main part of their sea food and coconuts from these people, they are to offer them guide posts and engage and educate them in/for other posts to be engaged by a certain number of those neighbors.
* All tourist operations within the sector should be forced to donate 10% of their total net income towards Community Development Projects and Fauna & Flora Protection and Development Programmes.
back to top

CAPE LTD'S COOPERATION

INTRODUCTION: Cape Ltd has been working with the creation of God's Plenty, Kilwa & Songo Songo Marine National Park for a bit more than a year now. The idea arose from a wish that I had way back then in the eighties. Today as Cape Ltd is a physically existing entity containing other people of the same ideology and believes this wish is being worked on with strong devotion.
All Directors within Cape Ltd are united in the belief that the park is one of the main tasks the Co. has to accomplish a.s.a.p. All of us are therefore ready to struggle for its creation and we will show the authorities that whether they are with us or not we have warned them of what needs to be done, as well as we within Cape Ltd are ready to work according to above regulations. Cape Ltd is not in the Kilwa region for any other reason than that the Co. knows that it is one of earth's so called paradises, the Co. would like to see it remain being exactly that.
Change will come to the region, no one can stop the turn of the world, and this change can be more good and less bad if the region's population is helped to be prepared and helped to understand this inevitable change to come. As the bridge is ready over the Rufiji River and as the all weather road is completed between Dar Es Salaam and Lindi and Mtwara this change will come with the speed of motorized vehicles! This is what the government wants, and it is what the southerners have been crying for, for a long time; they have seen the North developing and they have seen the people there becoming rich, but they have only been able to see it from a distance and hear it from travellers. Not so long ago and still today southerners say "if no development comes to the South then we may as well split the country in North and South of the Rufiji and we get on with it ourselves", well the world has caught up with them. They no longer have to worry about development, what they on the contrary should worry about is: are they going to be over-run by it or are they going to get their rightful share from it!?
Cape Ltd would like to ensure the well being of both the inhabitants and the nature. As I earlier mentioned Cape Ltd is not a rich co. but it has will, respect for its welcoming neighbors and their land and a truck-load of devotion, which really is all that it takes because the money will roll into this region, the question is just how the money is going to be handled!?

ACTION PLAN

If you want to know more about the development of the Maine Nationalpark please contact us

"GOD'S PLENTY"