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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Solution: besides giving out mosquito nets, also give out fishing nets...

That's a non solution. Giving them nets and fishing nets will only make then sell the fishing nets and using the mosquito nets for their fishing needs.

One solution is to look for another solution. Like a genetically modified mosquito that is inhospitable to malaria and outcompetes regular mosquito.

Other is to try stabilizing the region.

Or destroy all mosquitoes.

You don't even need to do that. It's only one species of mosquito that is a problem.

The people who are currently giving starving people mosquito nets, and expressing surprise that they use them to get food, probably shouldn't try to stabilize the region economically, politically, or, heaven forbid, militarily.

Other could be to create more faible mosquito nets that break easily under the forces used to fish, thus being useless as fishnets.

Giving out proper fishing nets would also enable over-fishing, but this could be the lesser of two evils. It reminds me of the calculus around giving addicts clean needles: it feels wrong to enable a destructive and illegal behavior, but the alternative is a net net worse outcome. (Pun intended.)

Over-fishing using nets is done on an industrial scale backed by capital from wealthy industrial and post-industrial economies. The family that fishes in the swamp is not the critical actor.

The proper fishing nets won't have nearly the amount of bycatch as the malaria net used for fishing. The holes in the malaria net are small enough that mosquitos can't make it through. Holes in a fishing net are far larger, so will let very small fish or other creatures through.

The article makes it pretty clear that overfishing is likely to wipe out local fish populations.

As opposed to entire marine fisheries destroyed by industrialized fishing that puts tins of tuna on grocery shelves.

Which has nothing to do with the article.

I beg to differ. The economic principles underlying both are the same — technology pushed the supply curve too far to the left, past the critical regeneration threshold (which must exist for any self-renewing resource).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg#t=27m53s

The concern here isn't so much about fishing (though it may be a problem) as much as it is what the nets are treated with, which might affect fish populations, other species, and the very humans they're intended to protect. The article explicitly states that permethrin is highly toxic to cold-blooded animals, fish in particular, and could over-stress local populations. If the fish they don't catch die from exposure to insecticides, the situation is liable to get much worse.

I understand why the nets were treated with insecticide, but it seems a bit foolhardy to have done so when there was a possibility the nets might not be used for their intended purpose. Although I suspect no one involved considered such a possibility, or if they did that it wouldn't be nearly as wide spread.

I think this represents one of the major problems with our current means of providing foreign aid. Although well-meaning, providing mosquito nets to people in effort to protect them from a disease that is likely to kill them versus starving to death (which definitely will kill them), the people are going to address their immediate concerns first. I don't know what the solution is, but it seems that just attacking one particular problem at a time isn't working. I agree with other comments here that eliminating malaria probably means dealing with food stability and access to clean water first and foremost, then addressing malaria (in parallel, possibly). I respect the organizations that are trying to help, but the solutions don't come easily.

But then you also have the other problem that these are impoverished, sometimes war-torn areas that have threats even beyond the scope of access to food and water...

When people don't fall sick again and again in his beds by malaria, they can work more days and have more resources to spend in the food market. This should be understood as an economy improvement for the family. Same as to have a roof.

Overfishing and the extinction of both fishes and the professional fishers is a big problem for all the community.

Oh, I agree. I just think the problem in this case is that it's difficult for us (being well fed and well educated) to fully appreciate the immediacy of starvation.

sadly, a very good point.

This reminds me of a recent article about an abandoned flooded mall. Fish were added to control the mosquito population.

So what happens to the mosquitoes when the fish population drops?

The solution is to make nets weaker so they break if used for fishing. You do not need a strong net for mosquitoes but you do need one for fishing. Also, maybe if there is real hunger provide food relief as well.

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