text: After having watched Darwin's Nightmare, one must have the impression of Tanzania being a living hell, with its population being quasi-slaves delivering the finest fish to the well-fed Europeans while leaving the fish bones to the starving population. In exchange for the fish they get western-made weapons, which the mainly unemployed population eagerly awaits to use, because being a soldier is their only source of income.<br /><br />So everything is all dark with trade as the incarnation of evil and source of all misery? Not quite. Fortunately Darwin's Nightmare shows the dark sides only and completely spares the positive aspects. In fact, the documentary hardly tells anything about the economic and ecologic importance the victoriaperch has for the region.<br /><br />For the countries around lake Victoria the victoriaperch is the second to third most important source of income. The wages in the fishing industry are way above average. Tanzania has banned huge trawlers to secure the jobs of thousands of fishermen. The adjacent states have met agreements to keep fishing on a sustainable level. Cities at the lake are benefiting from the taxes the fishers have to pay for each kilogram caught fish and the taxes on the factories' exports and profits. Furthermore Tanzania has banned exporting the local traditional fish, which still play an important role feeding the local population.<br /><br />By ignoring those positive signs the documentary deters the badly needed western consumers and investors and thus threatens to aggravate the African's situation.<br /><br />For further reading I can recommend two articles the German alternative-wing newspaper wrote on the subject: http://www.taz.de/pt/2006/09/02/a0013.1/textdruck http://www.taz.de/pt/2005/03/17/a0151.1/text