Matís' two employees were in Tanzania for a few days recently to guide them on how to set up a solar oven to dry fish. An interesting story about this appeared in Stöðvar 2's news, but Hugrún Halldórsdóttir, a journalist, was curious about this interesting project.
The news from Station 2 can be found here and here.
More about the project
Fishing and processing advice in Tanzania
In the autumn of 2011, Matís signed a contract with the Tanzanian government for a project on Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. The project is funded by a loan from the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) based in Helsinki. The project was put out to tender in the Nordic countries and Matís won the tender.
Lake Tanganyika is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, almost 19,000 square kilometers in size. The lake is also the second deepest freshwater in the world, 1500 meters where it is deepest. Four countries border the lake, i.e. Tanzania, Congo, Burundi and Zambia. Tanzanians fish in Tanganyika, but both fishing and processing are primitive. Matís' project is, among other things, to assist in the development of methods to make better use of the fish and make it more valuable.
Matís has agreed with the Icelandic companies Ráðgarður Skipráðgjöf ehf. and Verkfræðistofa Jóhann Indriðason ehf. (VJI) for part of the project. Ráðgarður will provide advice and oversee the construction of a specialized vessel to be used for research on Tanganyika and fish stocks in the lake, while the VJI engineering office will manage procurement for the project. In addition, Matís has entered into an agreement with the company Goch in Tanzania, which will handle the socio-economic part of the project and communication with fishing communities on Lake Tanganyika.
"This project is a great challenge for us because the conditions there are all very primitive and different from what we know. We thus need to find ways to develop fish processing based on what is available, but we can not afford to have electricity, oil or other energy sources as elsewhere. A big part of the project is then about training and teaching the locals how to handle the fish and we will send people from us who will choose a few villages by the lake and guide the residents. It can therefore be said that part of the project will be carried out here at home and at later stages we will then work according to our plans on site. This will be a very exciting project that we expect to culminate in 2012, "says Oddur Már Gunnarsson, division manager at Matís, who is also the project manager of the Tanzania project. Together with him, Margeir Gissurarson, project manager at the Matís project, manages.
Further information: Oddur Már Gunnarsson