Elephant Marsh is one of Malawi’s most important fishing grounds, directly employing more than 4,000 people, with thousands more involved in processing and selling fish.But the marsh is under multiple pressures, including expanding settlements and farming, and deforestation, which is causing the wetland to shrink.The government of Malawi has established and empowered community groups to take on responsibility for conserving the wetland to sustain their livelihoods.
ELEPHANT MARSH, Malawi — At 5:30 am, trader Flora Kumilai is squatting before a heap of smoked catfish at Sorjin Market in southern Malawi’s Elephant Marsh, haggling with sellers over the price. “I found gold in fish,” she chuckles as she fills a third cardboard box. “And Elephant Marsh is the mine.”
Kumilai, who has traveled here from Malawi’s commercial capital, Blantyre, will spend a week in the area, visiting other fish markets around the marsh until she has 12 of these boxes, around 900 kilograms (1,990 pounds) of smoked fish. Then she will band together with other traders to hire a truck to transport their goods back to Blantyre, 140 kilometers (87 miles) to the north. But for Kumilai, the final destination for her goods is more than 1,500 km (930 mi) away, at a market in Kasumbalesa on the border between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
