George Coulter's main aim in writing this book was to use his
personal experience of field work in fishery development in Africa to assess
attitudes to, and success or failure of, international development schemes. It is a
very timely and readable book, based on a lifetime of ecological research and its
applications in West, Central and East Africa from the 1950s to the present day,
including changes in human culture and circumstances over the past half century.
In Part I he describes six projects in which he was involved: in Ghana, Zambia,
Burundi, and Tanzania. Part II gives a historic background of chosen events, from
David Livingstone travelling round the Bangweulu Swamps 1863-66. Part III
looks at the social and economic evolution of African people on the move from
traditional to modern life styles. Coulter's working life in Africa thus bridged the
transition from Colonial Service days, with from 1962 onwards specialist advisers
of many nationalities visiting the newly independent countries on short term
contracts. From the 1980s he worked with several large United Nations agencies
which were financing research projects. His technical book on Lake Tanganyika
has become a basic text.
Coulter was first posted (1954) as Fishery Officer Gold Coast (which became
Ghana in 1957) to assess how the villages on the lower Volta would be affected by
the proposed Volta Dam, a hydroelectric project completed in 1964 which created
Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in Africa. He now questions whether the
Volta Dam has justified itself commercially, concluding that the dam's volatile
economic performance has given less output than hoped for, and the scheme has
had little positive influence for the majority of Ghanaians. For the thousands of
people displaced by the 85,000 sq km new lake, and for the lower Volta villages,
the social costs have In the long run outweighed any benefits.
In Ghana Coulter helped to initiate a mechanised coastal fishery, which
rose then fell. Ghana's marine fisheries have intensified but total catch has not
increased. Industrial trawlers and tuna vessels contribute 36% of Ghana's marine
catch, mostly exported overseas; foreign fishing vessels intrude inside Ghana's 200-mile exclusion zone, the marine resource is overfished and cannot absorb
further intensification.
In 1959 Coulter was transferred to the Joint Fisheries Research Organisation
in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) to study the seasonal fishery in the remote
Bangweulu Swamps. He was then moved to a fisheries station on the Zambian
shores of Lake Tanganyika, a long deep rift valley lake whose waters are shared
by four riparian countries (Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia and Congo). From here he
studied the ecology of Lake Tanganyika's unique and rich fish fauna. This entailed
sampling the large internal wave (seiche) caused by the seasonal trade winds
which brings nutrients Into sunlit surface waters where they stimulate growth of
plankton, food of the commercially important 'sardines'. JFRO also stocked these
clupelds into Lake Kariba, a new lake formed behind a hydroelectric dam on the
Zambezi River, where they support a valuable fishery in Lake Kariba. They later
spread down the Zambezi and came to support another new fishery in the manmade
Lake Cabora Bassa.
On an epic sampling trip to the north of Lake Tanganyika accompanied by
David Eccles from Lake Malawi, arriving in Burundi on Independence Day they
were detained as suspected South African spies. Political changes and ethnic
wars also interrupted research in Burundi in 1972 when he was there on a United
Nations UNDP/FAO fisheries development project; in this first Hutu-Tutsi war
his African counterpart was murdered. This 1972 war preceded the later wars in
Burundi and Rwanda which so shocked the world.
Despite developments In recent years, Coulter questions whether these
countries are yet economically and politically viable. Salient facts which hit the
eye are stagnating agriculture, cities lacking Industrial growth and exponentially
Increasing human populations.
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