I was in Zanzibar in March of this year. And yes, there is an
anti-collecting atmosphere there, including a flyer at the (luxury) hotel.
And the guides preach against collecting, but there are NO official
restrictions to be found.

Exotic Zanzibar is quite quite poor and picturesque. The women in outlying
villages spend a lot of their time carrying water (on their head). This, in
one village, despite a small pipeline which does not function during the day.

That said, I must point out that Zanzibar is quite different from the rest
of friendly Tanzania: the population is mostly religiously very
fundamentalist (Muslim), and - aside from those who make a living off
tourists - resent all tourism, don't permit their pictures to be taken
without payment, have laws against photographing "government facilities".
The latter is used to try extortion at the frequent police roadblocks.
Minor extortion was also used at the airport: since there are no X-ray
machines, the inspection is done by having you empty your pockets. Those of
us who had some folding currency in our pockets were requested to buy the
inspector a coke.

I innocently walked along the beach in front of our hotel collecting at the
tide line. I was stopped by three soldiers: I had inadvertently walked in
front of a totally unmarked "government facility". After I convinced the
soldiers that I was not in a money-making endeavor, they helped me look for
shells.

There are hundreds of vendors of wood carvings; some of those also sell
large shells. And I purchased a few things from a shell vendor at one
beach. In the final analysis, it is all money-driven.


At 10:37 PM 9/12/00 -0400, you wrote:
>zanzabar has joined the ever growing coalition banned sites, this came from
>a travelshow and as the host walked a beach scattered with beached shells
>(strombus, cypraea , harpa and some other beauties ) while being escorted by
>a local fish and game officer who made the point very clear that they must
>remane where you find them and heavy fines are imposed on those who take the
>beached beauties . so just in scase someone had an urge to shell
>Zanzabar,,,, *<:)Ferret)~~~~

John Wolff
2640 Breezewood Dr.
Lancaster, PA 17601
717-569-6955