Every January, about 60 small fishing boats head out from the main beach of the town of São Tomé, the capital of São Tomé and Príncipe, a small island state in the Gulf of Guinea, off the west coast of Africa. A priest at the head of the maritime procession carries the image of Saint Peter, the fisherman and apostle, to invoke the miraculous catch described in the Bible and ask for Saint Peter’s protection.
In May, it’s the turn of the fishers of Neves, a town on the northwest coast of São Tomé, to ward off bad luck and officially open the flying fish season by throwing their first catch up in the air when they return to shore, for people to share and eat.
But year-round, the protection that fishers depend on the most is certainly their Global Positioning System (GPS). “It’s my god,” affirmed categorically Célcio Dias – known as Mano. A 30-year-old fisherman from Praia Melão in the suburbs of São Tomé, Mano explained: “From the beach, the sea may look friendly but when you sail in deep waters it’s dangerous and scary. There are sharks, even whales. It’s easy to lose sight of the land. When I started fishing, I did not have a GPS. I lost many friends. Some got lost, some drifted to foreign countries, and some died. Now that I have a GPS, my family is much less worried.”
The kits are part of a broad menu of interventions that are helping build greater resilience and reduce poverty in the small island state of São Tomé and Príncipe (STP). About 223,000 people live on the archipelago and about 15.4% of the population falls under the international poverty line.
Physical investments, financed by the International Development Association (IDA) under the multi-donor West Africa Coastal Areas Resilience Program (WACA) managed by the World Bank, focus on 12 artisanal fishing communities on the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. These include investments in breakwaters, seawalls, road rehabilitation, boat ramps and new, safer housing for people exposed to storm surges and rising tides. Eleven lighthouses that had fallen in disrepair were renovated and equipped with more long-lasting, solar-powered technology. New recreational, sanitary, and educational facilities are being built at the communities’ request to complement the investments in coastal infrastructure. Together, these assets create a safer and cleaner living environment for fishing communities.
But the social impact of these investments may be much broader. “90% of our animal protein comes from fish. In our society, the men fish and the women sell fish. So, protecting the lives and livelihoods associated with fishing is essential. It helps preserve many families,” said Arlindo Carvalho, Technical Coordinator at the Ministry of Infrastructures, Natural Resources and the Environment, which is implementing the WACA project in STP.
As overfishing and oceanic changes have reduced fishing stocks close to São Tomé, fishers have had to push their luck further from the coast in perilous wooden canoes and small fiberglass boats.