Conserving Poverty: Destructive Fishing Gear Use in a Tanzanian Marine Protected Area

Abstract

Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, this paper attends to the persistent use of Destructive Fishing Gear (DFG) in a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in southeastern Tanzania. Based on participant observation, document analysis, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions conducted with villagers, I argue that the MPA has failed to eliminate the use of DFG because of its inability to address the historically-embedded political, economic, and sociocultural dimensions of DFG use in the inshore fishery. I contend that pre-existing and conservation-induced conditions of poverty drive the continued use of DFG inside the MPA. Such circumstances are framed by colonial and post-independence state-level development policies. They are also textured by breakdowns in customary marine tenure practices, changing beliefs about which types of fishing gear villagers consider to be traditional, and community-defined moral rights to fish for the fulfilment of basic material needs. I maintain that MPAs must take into account the anthropological complexities of poverty if they are to be effective.