13 Policy Matters.qxp

knowledge.^8

Beach seining

Beach seining takes place on the four main

sand bottom beaches on the cape. In princi-

pal, seiners from all beaches abide by a

similar set of rules which define timing, use

rights and how fishing activities take place.

On all but one beach, seining is done by

day. The basic strategy for day seining

throughout the cape is the same. This type

of fishing requires clear placid water, high

nearby hills and sandy coves in the coast-

line. Each canoe has approximately nine

crewmembers collectively called the com-

panha. Although all positions are important

and necessary, the lookout is the corner-

stone for this type of beach seining.

Because beach seiners do not use bait and

do not move from location to location look-

ing for schools, they must actually see the

fish that they are attempting to catch

before they can effectively ‘fence’ them in

with their net.

The lookout stands on the top of the hill to

get a bird’s-eye view of the incoming migra-

tory schools of fish (See Fig. 3). The clarity

of the water is essential in order to spot

incoming schools of fish as well as to identi-

fy the species, size and number present in

the school, a process often referred to as

“baptizing”. The lookout baptises the

schools and decides whether they are wor-

thy and well placed to be caught.

Another important resource for the success

of beach seining is the availability of a large

dugout canoe. These are fashioned from

huge trees and when finished are approxi-

mately one meter in diameter and seven to

eight meters long (See Figs. 1 and 7). Four

men maneuver the canoe (rowers), two

men are responsible for placing the huge

net in the water, and the skipper or mestre

is responsible for co-coordinating this

process by receiving hand signals from the

distant lookout and relating them back to

the rest of the team. The last member of

the team stays on the beach throughout

this process and is responsible for a rope

connected to the net that he pulls when sig-

naled. As soon as the signal is given and

the net starts to go in the water, this person

starts closing the sides of the net to prevent

the fish from escaping. He is later joined by

the rest of the crew and often by other par-

ticipants who help in the lengthy affair of

pulling the net on to shore (See Fig. 4).

Conservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice

Figure 2.Present and Future Extractive
Reserves (Courtesy Patricia Pinto da Silva)

Figure 3.Lookout spotting incoming schools

of fish (Courtesy Patricia Pinto da Silva)