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Article: Lake Victoria: Casualty of capitalism.
- Article from:
- Monthly Review
- Article date:
- December 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lake Victoria, the world's second largest fresh-water lake (after Lake Superior), has long been East Africa's chief environmental, economic, and nutritional asset. Its four hundred species of native fish have traditionally provided local fishermen with their livelihood and East Africans with their primary source of protein.
Capitalist maldevelopment and the intrusion of the global market have changed all that--swiftly and calamitously. A non-native fish introduced for the export market has proved a voracious predator, reducing the lake's unique assemblage of fish by at least two hundred species. The lake has been polluted by putrefying effluent from ...