balducci+movie8

//Darwin’s Nightmare//

In 2004, Hubert Sauper wrote and directed //Darwin’s Nightmare//. The movie is about the problem with the Nile Perch fishing industry and arms deals. The introduction of the Nile Perch to Lake Victoria, Tanzania, was looked at as a great thing creating a fishing industry that supplied jobs to thousands of people; but the fish has created a number of social and environmental problems that some people still refuse to acknowledge. There wasn’t much educational information such as facts. The film was more of a general presentation of issues to simply expose them. It isn’t a film for someone well educated, like a scientist, to watch because of the lack of facts; instead it is more of a movie for the general public to view to generate awareness of Africa’s issues.

The environmental matrix wasn’t very compelling. There wasn’t much visual support of environmental issues and lake devastation. When people were shown fishing, the lake looked nice; the water was blue and there were trees on the coastline. There also wasn’t much emphasis on this issue and it was only brought up for a couple minutes at a press conference scene. The environmental issue is that the Nile Perch is a fish that does not naturally exist in the lake’s ecosystem and over the years has permanently damaged it. The Perch has eaten over 200 fish species to the point of extinction and has now moved on to eating its own young. One of the extinct fish, the cichlids, ate algae and waste in the lake to maintain a healthy water environment. Now the lake is gone and there is too much algae and pollution in the lake. Too much algae can kill other plant life and decrease oxygen levels which can kill fish.

The social impact is alarming. There are many different health problems and forms of corruption. Most of the people in the area work to collect the thousands of pounds of fish that are capable of feeding over 2 million people a day but are unable to feed themselves. The bad economy and food shortage due to poor farming and weather leave many people starving. Fisherman’s wives sell their bodies to make extra money to simply survive and contract and spread AIDS to clients and husbands. Many children are orphaned because the parents are off fishing or have died from the disease. The children are then left to literally fight for their lives for food. They literally kill each other in fights over food, money or other possessions. The children get high from drugs or plastic fumes to help cope with the fear and be able to sleep at night. The plastic they burn comes from the fish packaging. The people make use of the fish scraps for food and burn the rest. The ammonia from the fumes makes the people sick and damages the eyes.

The worst problem presented in the movie was how the fish planes bring weapons to Africa to fuel the Congo Angola war. The government reported that it found out the Mwanza airport in Tanzania had poor security and was allowing weapons through. The airplanes are doubling profits selling the weapons to Africa and then selling fish to Europe. To try to solve the problem of a poor economy they are exporting and selling fish to try to make money. The problem is that they are getting such poor prices for the fish the industry isn’t very profitable. The money from the fish is supposed to help the people be able to buy more imports of foods to solve the problem of food shortages. Instead the money is going towards purchasing weapons for the wars. One man says that to solve all these problems the flow of weapons into the country has to be stopped. This may work for a little while but soon people will find other weapons to use. The war will not stop because people get paid a lot to be soldiers so they support a war. A real solution would be to pay farmers to grow food and help them acquire better tools and skills instead of paying soldiers. There will be a job shift as well as a decrease in food shortages and fighting.

There is actually an organization that is trying to help fund and teach farming in different areas of Africa including Tanzania. To learn more about the projects or to donate go to [].