2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

by Paul Torday

  The project acquired a degree of notoriety in the press after the deaths of the prime minister and the sheikh. It was written off as some kind of bizarre political adventure. There has been little appreciation in the scientific community at home of what we achieved. In the Yemen they remain very proud of it. The sheikh is remembered in prayer every day at the Ministry of Fish Wealth, which has taken over responsibility for the project. The holding basins have been drained, and all the machinery has been mothballed. In that dry climate it will take no harm for a few years. They say that one day salmon will be held in those tanks again and released into the Wadi Aleyn, but it hasn’t happened yet.

  The people of al-Shisr netted all the remaining salmon in Holding Basin N°2 for several weeks after the sheikh’s death. There were nightly barbecues on the wadi bed, and the smell of grilled salmon rose every evening into the sky.

  The deputy minister for fish wealth has written to me that the next five-year strategic fishery plan is currently being formulated, and when they come to discussing the role of a salmon fishery in the future development of the Yemen’s natural resources, I will be consulted. That was some while ago, and they have not been in touch since. I don’t know whether to hope that I will hear from them or not.

  Looking back to that day the sheikh died, I know now that I was in shock, and his death had not really hit me. There was just too much happening. I couldn’t take it all in at the time. Since then I have grieved for him, and now, as I wade through the headwaters of the Coquet, emptying buckets of salmon fry into the river, I have conversations with him which are more than imaginary.

  I hear him say to me, from somewhere behind my left shoulder, ‘Yes, Dr Alfred, we did it in the end. We believed in it, and so we did it.’

  ‘You were right, Sheikh. We believed. You taught me to believe.’

  I hear the smile in his voice, although I cannot see it. ‘I taught you to take the first step: to learn to believe in belief. And one day you will take the second step and find what it is you believe in.’

  I empty the bucket of juvenile fish into the shallow, gravelly stream, and say, ‘How will I know?’

  And, fainter than the murmur of the rills of water trickling over the stones, comes the reply: ‘You will know.’

  So, I work at the hatchery, and at night I sit in my rented two-roomed cottage near Uswayford under the green and brown bulk of the Cheviot Hills. I sit and I think. I don’t really know what it is I think about although I still think sometimes about Harriet. I try not to do that too often. That awakens memories I would rather not have.

  Sometimes I think about Mary. I speak to her on the phone most weeks. I have given up email unless it is absolutely necessary. It is part of another life now. I speak to Mary on the phone but I reverse the charges because I really can’t afford the phone bills. She is working in Diisseldorf now. I’m not sure if it was the promotion she was expecting. I think it has been more of a sideways move. We all have our disappointments in life.

  We have sold the flat in London and bought a smaller one as neither of us is there very often. We travel to London once every other month. We meet and have dinner together, and try and make some sense of our lives. I’m not sure we will succeed. We’ve agreed we will remain married. Neither of us can think of anything else to do with our lives. We both have our work. I’ve told Mary I don’t want her to feel financially responsible for me. She agrees, but I think she wants to look after me, really, if only I would let her. But I’m happy, here in these hills, raising juvenile fish and putting them into the river. These little salmon fry have more chance here than they would in the Yemen. This is their natural habitat, and this is my natural habitat, too.

  In the evenings I read a lot. I can’t get a television signal where I live, and I can’t afford to pay for satellite TV. I don’t miss it. I never watched it much, anyway. So I read. I read anything and everything, and at weekends, if I’m not in London, I browse the shelves of the secondhand bookshops in Alnwick and Morpeth, my nearest towns. I can’t run to new books, but it seems to me so many good books have already been written I don’t need to get new ones. I buy handfuls of old novels and biographies for a few pounds, or sometimes I just trade in the ones I have read. They let me do that. I’m a good customer. I buy the classics—Dickens, Thackeray, Fielding. Lately I’ve started on books of essays—Hazlitt, Browne, and so on. In one of them I read something I rather liked, and I’ve got it here. I keep it with me. I’ll read it to you, if you like.

  ‘And we recall that Tertullian, the son of a centurion that lived in Carthage, who wrote many sacred texts discoursing on the gospels, and on the nature of faith, once wrote ‘Certum, impossible est.’ It is certain that this thing is impossible. Others aver that what Tertullian wrote was not ‘Certum, impossibile est ‘ but ‘Credo, quia impossibile est.’ I believe in it, because it is impossible.’

  I like that. Don’t you?

  I believe in it, because it is impossible.

  33

  Conclusions of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee

  The decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen

  Conclusions and recommendations

  We conclude that it appears likely given the body of evidence that the decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen was not taken by any minister, but was the initiative of a private Yemeni citizen, the late Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi bani Tihama.

  We conclude that the home secretary was, as he stated in the House of Commons, unaware of the alleged attempt at an assassination of the Sheikh Muhammad at his residence in Scotland by an alleged member of al-Qaeda. As this event was never proven to have occurred by a UK court, we cannot criticise the home secretary or the security services for failing to predict another such attempt, which is alleged to have taken place in the Wadi Aleyn shortly before the hydrological event which unfortunately terminated the life of the prime minister.

  In relation to the matter that was brought up during evidence of the death of Captain Robert Matthews, we conclude that the secretary of state for defence was genuinely unaware that Captain Matthews was on a mission in Iran, without the knowledge of ministers, and no blame can be attached to anyone for the unfortunate series of events which led to Captain Matthews being posted as Missing in Action.

  We conclude that the director of communications, Mr Peter Maxwell, was acting on his own initiative in advising the late Mr Jay Vent PM to take notice of the Yemen salmon project, and that Mr Peter Maxwell had concluded that some electoral advantage could be gained from Mr Vent’s presence at the launch of the Yemen salmon project, and that was his basis for recommending Mr Vent’s involvement with the project.

  We recommend that future directors of communications have their job descriptions phrased so as to make clear their role is to communicate, and not to take future prime ministers into harm’s way, regardless of electoral considerations. We recommend that Peter Maxwell should not be reinstated in his former role.

  We conclude that insufficient attention was given to risk assessment by the project engineers and managers, notwithstanding that such assessments are not required in Yemeni law as they would be under the UK Health & Safety at Work Act. Had such an assessment been carried out, the hydrological event which led to the death of the prime minister and others might have been predicted and appropriate precautions taken. Notwithstanding this conclusion, we are unable to say that any one individual was culpable in this matter.

  We conclude that the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence exceeded its mandate in agreeing to act as the primary technical resource for the Yemen salmon project, and we recommend that the centre be disbanded and merged with the Environment Agency.

  We conclude that, in policy terms, we cannot endorse the view of the prime minister’s office that an initiative involving the introduction of salmon into the Yemen would sit alongside its other policies in the region, which are mainly focused on military intervention in protection of regional oil resources and associated
attempts at introducing the democratic process. We believe the government should choose between salmon and democracy in its regional initiatives. The combination of the two sends a confusing signal to regional players.

  Nevertheless we have detected a benign outcome from the tragic death of the late James Vent PM. The perception in the region that UK policy can also focus on non-military, non-oil-related subjects, such as fly-fishing, has not been entirely negative. On the contrary, we understand that a statue of the late prime minister and Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi bani Tihama is being subscribed for, showing both of them in chest waders and carrying fishing rods, as they were when last seen alive. This will be erected in the centre of Sana’a, if planning permission can be obtained.

  Glossary of terms used in the extracts

  Readers may find the following helpful.

  alevin: the earliest stage of the salmon after hatch, a translucent creature with an umbilical sac

  Allahu akhbar: God is great anadromous: able to tolerate both freshwater and saline environments

  Bedu: nomadic desert tribesman inhabiting the Arabian peninsula

  broodstock: hen fish from which eggs are stripped for rearing in a hatchery

  caddis fly: invertebrate insect resident of freshwater streams (Limnephilus genus)

  DEFRA: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

  dissolved oxygen: The level of dissolved oxygen in a river is an indicator of how well migratory fish are likely to survive in it. The lower the level, the more they are at risk.

  diwan: room set aside for the use of gentlemen wishing to chew khat (see below)

  diyah: blood money

  Environment Agency: department of DEFRA with responsibility for the management of rivers, the rural environment, flood management, and the enforcement of anti-pollution legislation

  falaj: ancient system of irrigation used in and regious consisting of stone tunnels or conduits taking water from aquifers in the mountains to farmers and others in more low-lying areas

  FCO: Foreign & Commonwealth Office

  fry: Once the baby alevin has absorbed the contents of its yolk sac it becomes a fry.

  genetic integrity: idea, dear to fisheries scientists, that the genetic purity of salmon from a particular river should be preserved and not diluted by the presence of fish from other rivers—illegal when applied to humans

  gillie: man or boy employed on many Scottish salmon rivers to stand at your elbow and explain why you are unlikely to catch a fish with your present technique

  glide: when the current in a river is enough to turn a salmon fly but not fast enough to be a riffle (see below)

  Hansard: official record of proceedings of the British Houses of Parliament

  imam: someone who leads prayers in a mosque, a person of authority in the community

  invertebrate: creature with no spine

  jambia: curved dagger much favoured by Yemenis

  jazr: Yemeni term for worker in an unclean trade, such as a butcher

  jebel: general Arabic word for mountains

  jihadi: person who devotes his or her life to the religious struggle, sometimes inaccurately conflated with a suicide bomber or assassin

  khat: mildly narcotic leaf which is chewed

  NCFE: National Centre for Fisheries Excellence, one of a number of scientific organisations researching into fishery management, now abolished

  parr: next stage of development of a salmon after a fry, similar in appearance to a baby brown trout, about the size of a finger with brown markings

  riffle: when the surface of the river water is slightly broken, and the current is moving faster than a glide (see above)

  Salaam alaikum: traditional Arab greeting (May God be with you)

  salmonid: migratory fish including salmon and sea trout

  sayyid: ruling class in the Yemen, a title given to tribal or religious leaders who claim descent from the Prophet Muhammad

  sebkha: white encrustation of salt on the surface of the desert usually indicating the presence of moisture, a sign of quicksand

  selta: vegetable broth very popular in the highlands of the Yemen

  sharia: law as practised and observed by the Prophet Muhammad in his lifetime, in force in certain countries in the Muslim world

  sitara: colourful shawl worn by women in the highlands of the Yemen

  smolt: The juvenile salmon, at some point between sixteen months and two years after achieving parr form, starts to change physiologically. It develops salt-excreting cells, and it takes on a silvery appearance. Once fully silvered it becomes known as a smolt, a fish about six inches long. In this form it makes its way downriver to the saltwater estuary. From there, by degrees, it makes it way in the company of other smolts and salmon to the feeding grounds in the North Atlantic where it may remain from one to four years.

  Spey cast: an elaborate double-looped cast much beloved by Highland gillies which has the merit that the fisherman never gets his line tangled up in the bank or the trees behind (as in an overhead cast) because the loop of the Spey cast is always in front

  thobe: a robe worn in the highlands of the Yemen and in Saudi Arabia

  wadi: a riverbed dry except in the rainy season (when it is a river)