Posted on 01/24/2015 10:15:56 AM PST by kristinn
Nobody in his hut, including his seven children, sleeps under a net at night. Instead, Mr. Ndefi has taken his family’s supply of anti-malaria nets and sewn them together into a gigantic sieve that he uses to drag the bottom of the swamp ponds, sweeping up all sorts of life: baby catfish, banded tilapia, tiny mouthbrooders, orange fish eggs, water bugs and the occasional green frog.
“I know it’s not right,” Mr. Ndefi said, “but without these nets, we wouldn’t eat.”
Across Africa, from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique, mosquito-net fishing is a growing problem, an unintended consequence of one of the biggest and most celebrated public health campaigns in recent years.
The nets have helped save millions of lives, but scientists worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish.
Part of the concern is the scale. Mosquito nets are now a billion dollar industry, with hundreds of millions of insecticide-treated nets passed out in recent years, and many more on their way.
They arrive by the truckload in poor, waterside communities where people have been trying to scrape by with substandard fishing gear for as long as anyone can remember. All of a sudden, there are light, soft, surprisingly strong nets — for free. Many people said it would be foolish not to use them for fishing.
“The nets go straight out of the bag into the sea,” said Isabel Marques da Silva, a marine biologist at Universidade Lúrio in Mozambique. “That’s why the incidence for malaria here is so high. The people don’t use the mosquito nets for mosquitoes. They use them to fish.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Isn’t this mosquito-net thing one of Bill Gates’ projects?
D.D.T. would stop malaria in its tracks.
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; give a man a mosquito net, and you feed him for a lifetime.
All they need to do is bring back DDT, which has now been shown to be harmless to wildlife at the concentrations in which it is used to kill mosquitoes. It’s cheap, not susceptible to individual misuse (like these people not using their mosquito nets to protect against mosquitoes) and easy to apply.
The entire world is still suffering from the Rachel Carson pesticide version of “global warming,” that is, a false panic based on shaky or non-existent science that then somehow becomes so politically correct it can never be questioned.
Millions get malaria in order to maintain a shrine to Rachel Carson.
They are her monument.
So much of this doesn't ring true... not saying it's not happening on some scale - but the 'numbers' don't add up.
How long does the average net used for fishing last? Billions on nets? Smells like large scale corruption being blamed on subsistence fishermen.
Scientists would have to admit they were wrong and that is not going to happen. Marxists have their pride no matter how many die.
Pray America is waking
Lucky thing they never learn from their mistakes or they might not have anything to do.
I know it’s not right but I’m laughing my ass off about this.
L
You feed him just until he dies of malaria.
Good advice, but not PC, so it will never fly.
The mosquitos appreciate the humor of it also.
This is nearly as good as when Castro *SPIT* gave FREE rice cookers to Cuban Housewives!
Of course...there was no RICE - but it’s the THOUGHT that counts, Right? *SMIRK*
Someone is getting very rich of the production of mosquito nets.
I have slept under mosquito nets while in the Far East and I have observed that they are very light and flimsy. They have to be because they are usually supported by a light frame as they are suspended above a bed.
It is doubtful that they could survive being dropped in a river, with all the floating debris, more than once without tearing.
“They arrive by the truckload in poor, waterside communities where people have been trying to scrape by with substandard fishing gear for as long as anyone can remember.”
I’m sure some of them can remember when Europeans administered the colonies and the fishermen had real gear; they would have to in a functioning economy, and the Europeans didn’t take on colonies just to feed more people.
“That’s why the incidence for malaria here is so high. The people don’t use the mosquito nets for mosquitoes. They use them to fish.”
Many of the fish, reptiles, etc. they are scooping up in the nets consume mosquitos as well, therefore they are depleting the resources that actually keep the mosquitos in check.
Reads like a Catch-22. Either eat, or.....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.