‘Our only livelihood’: Zimbabwean fishing communities fear for future as stocks dwindle

Talent Siyakanyowa, left, who captains the Bbindauko Banakazi Kapenta Co-operative’s boat, and his crew member, Jimmy, spread out kapenta to dry after a night’s fishing on Lake Kariba Photograph: Cynthia R Matonhodze/The Guardian

On a stool on a fishing rig floating near the shore of Lake Kariba, a woman is furiously scraping off the scales from a fish. Eyes bloodshot after a night on the lake, created when the Zambezi River was dammed in the 1950s, Esnath Munkuli is not happy.

More than a dozen of the pontoon boats have docked at the village of Simatelele, the crews warming themselves in the morning sun while others paddle wooden canoes perilously close to a hippo herd.