In small towns along the Mozambican coast, South African dealers are recruiting Mozambican fishermen to capture rare and beautiful fish to supply the insatiable demands of tropical fish fanciers around the world.
The demand is huge, especially because so few of the delicate damsel, angel or other fish can actually survive being shipped across the planet.
And the money is big – so big that local environmentalists say they have been warned off when they have tried to investigate the trade which is devastating exotic fish species here.
Marcos Pereira, a marine biologist with the environmental pressure group, Forum para a Natureza em Perigo, says he went to see the government department responsible in the small town of Inhambane where dealers are working.
“I was told ‘you’d better watch out’,” he said.
And the business is not just aquarium fish. While the South Africans dominate this corner of the market, Portuguese and Mozambican dealers are buying tonnes and tonnes of rare shells to be exported and used as ornaments or for making jewellery.
They are also buying coral, which is used to decorate aquariums - thus helping to destroy Mozambique’s already suffering reefs.
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