Lake Victoria Fisheries Research Articles

Improving Fisheries Management in Developing Countries

The adoption of individual harvesting rights, such as IQs, has substantially improved the economics of numerous fisheries around the world. Unfortunately, many developing nations cannot employ these management systems because they lack the ability to enforce them. This paper argues that in many of these fisheries, properly designed community rights-based management regimes (CFMRs) will both greatly simplify the enforcement problem and create conditions conducive to economically efficient fisheries.The key features of such a CFMR for Lake Victoria fisheries are outlined and its workings explained. The essence of the system is the allocation of strong harvesting rights, similar to IQs, to the lake’s fishing communities combined with total allowable catch (TAC) limits for the entire lake. The net economic benefits of a project to design, install, and operate this CFMR are estimated. While the estimated net benefits are highly positive, they are much smaller than the attainable net economic surplus obtainable from the fishing activity only.

Editorial

Editorial

Mind the gaps for the best practices: Enhancing the management of Lake Victoria fisheries resources

AbstractFisheries resources face a confluence of socio‐ecological challenges, the resolution of which requires interdisciplinary scientific information for sustainable utilization and management. The present study assessed gaps and challenges in Lake Victoria fisheries resources management for better research focus, policy formulation and improved governance of the fishery towards sustainability. Using key informant interviews and a plenary discussion with trans‐disciplinary experts regarding Lake Victoria fisheries research, management and policy sectors, the present study identified current management challenges, gaps and priorities. The present study results indicate a constantly increasing fishing effort, poor enforcement of existing regulations and pollution and invasive weeds pose the greatest threats to the sustainability of Lake Victoria's fisheries resources. Policy gaps include a lack of regulations on emerging technologies (e.g. cage culture) and an absence of implementation guidelines and framework for some existing policies. The aspects and gaps of each challenge are discussed, using available literature for the lake, with policy and capacity interventions recommended under each section for sustainable management of Lake Victoria fisheries resources.

Aligning small indigenous fish species (SIS) in policy and management for enhanced food security and nutrition: The case of the Kenyan Lake Victoria Omena fishery

AbstractFisheries governance uses policy and statutory documents to improve governance on fish ecology, harvesting, trade and consumption by identifying and addressing gaps regarding inefficiencies, inequity and post‐harvest losses. The current study examines existing policies and institutional documents on fisheries, health and trade to assess the level of inclusion of small indigenous fish species (SIS), especially Omena, as a means of guiding governance interventions for sustained livelihoods of fishing communities in Lake Victoria. A content‐analysis review was conducted on all the fisheries and nutritional policy documents related to Lake Victoria fishery to ascertain the need for their integration into fisheries governance. From the scoring scale, where zero (0) implies no integration and three (3) implies high integration, the study results indicated very low levels of integration across health, fisheries and trade relating to small fish species. Further, the management plans and regulations/guidelines exhibited a relatively higher level of integration than did policies and laws. There is need for a more targeted approach for streamlining the existing policy documents to realize the untapped potential contribution of SIS towards food and nutritional security.

The Lost Coin: Redefining the economic and financial value of small-scale fisheries, the case of Lake Victoria, Kenya

Abstract Whereas small-scale fisheries account for the largest proportion of fish catches and employment in most developing countries, their value remain underestimated due to inadequate data collection systems, open access challenges and unreported landings. This study provided a methodological option to compare, contrast and validate official fisheries statistics in small-scale fisheries of Lake Victoria, Kenya. A standardized Fishing Business Model (FBM) was applied to reconstruct estimates of economic returns from Lake Victoria fisheries; taking into account fish auto-consumption, post-harvest losses and landings from illegal gears which are often missing in the official estimates. Primary data was collected using electronic questionnaires in various fish landing sites in July 2020 while secondary data was sourced from latest surveys on fish stocks, catches and fishing effort in the lake. Results indicate that fish catches amounted to 151,002 mt (Sd = 1767.0), which implies 1.6 times the official estimates, and that Total annual Fishing Revenue (TFR) was USD 297, 172, 579.39 (Sd = 2,674,359.0) which was 1.9 times higher than published statistics. Further, a small-scale fisher was found to earn a daily wage of USD 17.6, inclusive of the value of auto-consumption, under-sized fish and other unsold catch which are usually unreported. We recommend a review of official fisheries statistics in order to correct under-valuation in small-scale fisheries and to re-adjust the management cost recovery and revenue allocation frame-work in the fisheries sub-sector. This study thus makes a valuable contribution to literature on income and cost analysis for different fishing enterprises in small-scale fisheries.

The Contribution of Indigenous People towards Sustainable Exploitation and Innovation in the Lake Victoria Fishery: A Case of Seme Sub-County, Kenya

The Contribution of Indigenous People towards Sustainable Exploitation and Innovation in the Lake Victoria Fishery: A Case of Seme Sub-County, Kenya

Polycentric to monocentric governance: Power dynamics in Lake Victoria's fisheries

AbstractIn theory, polycentric governance arrangements are better able to respond to complex, uncertain, and multiscale challenges. Research on polycentric governance challenges these normative assumptions to find that the functionality of polycentric systems is constrained because different kinds of power influence not only the emergence and design of polycentric systems, but also decisions about policy choices and outcomes. This study uses a polycentric power typology to provide insights into the power dynamics underpinning the polycentric fisheries system of Lake Victoria through qualitative case study methods. The study reveals that power by design creates a polycentric structure that could potentially provide opportunities for power‐sharing between higher and lower decision centers. However, pragmatic and framing power erode power away from lower‐level authorities by either taking over or dismantling lower‐level decision centers and institutions. Without a genuine intent to share power among decision centers, cross‐level linkages are deliberately nonfunctional or have high transaction costs, creating and intensifying conflicts and competitions between the state and local governments. In the absence of functional cross‐linkages, information‐sharing, accountability, and conflict‐resolution mechanisms are hampered as is the inclusion of lower‐level actors in management. Higher‐level actors justify taking over functions of lower‐level actors by deploying frames of the lower‐level's “lack of capacity.” In combination, these factors concentrate power at the center, resulting in maladaptive outcomes in Lake Victoria's fisheries. The findings suggest that improving understanding of contextual conditions that are more suited to polycentric governance is important for refining theory and improving governance.

Big fish, small fries? The fluidity of power in patron-client relations of Lake Victoria fisheries

Big fish, small fries? The fluidity of power in patron-client relations of Lake Victoria fisheries

Participatory governance in Lake Victoria (Kenya) fisheries: whose voices are heard?

Co-management is advocated as a means to improve human equity and the ecological sustainability of common-pool resources. The promotion of co-management of fisheries often assumes the participation of resource users in decision-making ensures more ecologically sustainable outcomes than top–down management approaches while improving livelihoods and food security. However, in fisheries co-management approaches, participation is often poorly defined and measured by co-management proponents. For resource users, it may not be clear what their participation in co-management entails, and what such participation might involve or achieve. For the fisheries of Lake Victoria (Kenya), the introduction of co-management established Beach Management Units (BMUs) on a model of participatory decision-making. Unsurprisingly, given global experiences of institutions for resource users’ participation in co-management, the structures established across Lake Victoria (Kenya) have not resulted in effective participation of fisher folk. We examine why this is so. Specifically, we examine the influence of institutions on fisher folks’ participation in co-management, using critical institutionalism to explain how participation of resource users is shaped by the relation between formal government institutions and informal social norms. We take four BMUs as case studies to investigate how historical administrative structures shape the development of co-management, how power relationships within co-management are negotiated at the local beach level and the fisher folks’ understanding of their participation in co-management. We document how informal institutions undermine and replace formal institutions at the local beach level, while formal institutions suppress and ignore informal ones at the national and regional levels. From this, we argue power sharing between the government and fisher folk is key for fisher folk participation in fisheries co-management, capable of addressing both social and ecological challenges facing fisheries management.

Review of current state of knowledge of microcystin and its impacts on fish in Lake Victoria

AbstractMicrocystins are part of algal toxins produced intracellularly within algal cells, being in the family of hepatotoxic cyclic peptides from various species of blue‐green algae. Blue‐green algae are widely abundant in many equatorial eutrophic lakes, including Lake Victoria, with microcystin mainly from cyanobacterial blooms released into the water column, with different effects along the aquatic ecosystem trophic levels. Depending on the length of exposure and exposure route, microcystin effects on fish can include embryonic hatching perturbations, reduced survival and growth rates, changes in behavior, osmoregulation, increased liver activities and heart rates, as well as histopathological effects. While bioaccumulation is confirmed among fish, biomagnification along food webs is debatable. Lake Victoria the second largest freshwater lake in the world, and the source of livelihoods to millions reported near the gulf and shore MCs of 190 ± 51 to 543 ± 26 ng MC/g DW, respectively. Little is known, however, on the effects of microcystin on the Lake Victoria fishery and, ultimately, on the human population against the WHO recommended human microcystin intake levels of 0.04 µg/kg, thereby being the basis for this review.

A century of drastic change: Human-induced changes of Lake Victoria fisheries and ecology

Lake Victoria biophysical and geochemical status has changed dramatically within an unprecedentedly short time scale driven by human actions. These actions can be broadly classified as escalated fisheries exploitation, biomanipulation (characterized by species introduction) and catchment processes. A chronology of these activities since 1901 to present times is described and, where possible, related to changes in the ecology. The impacts of fishing are investigated using catch and effort data that have been consistently recorded for the past two decades. It is evident that water transparency in the offshore decreased from close to 8 m in late 1920s to less than 2 m in the 1990s before improving to about 4 m in the 2010s, a reflection of change in ecosystem functioning. The native tilapias that constituted the commercial fishery initially have since been replaced by introduced species and dagaa (Rastrineobola argentea) following biomanipulation events. Analysis of unified fishing effort index (E) reveals that in the last two decades fishing capacity has increased close to 8-fold in Kenya and Uganda and about three times in Tanzania. Illegal/prohibited gear have increased by 4.7 ± 1.9 folds whereas legal gear increased by 2.6 ± 0.8 times in the whole lake during since the year 2000. The catch per unit effort (CPUE) for Nile perch, tilapia and “others” declines with increasing effort while that for dagaa exhibits no clear trend. Haplorochromines catches and catch rates are increasing probably due to predatory release by the Nile perch. Tilapia and other fish catches and catch rates have declined with increasing harvesting capacity clearly indicating that they are over-fished. Catch and effort dynamics indicate that dagaa is still abundant in Lake Victoria. Overall, catches in Lake Victoria increase with increasing fishing effort but catch composition has shifted to one dominated by small pelagic species. It has been clearly shown that events leading to biomanipulation and processes in the catchment can fundamentally change a fishery in a different way as compared to fishing and hence the need for Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) in Lake Victoria.

Local-Economy Impacts of Cash Crop Promotion

A number of studies have examined the direct impacts of cash crop production on producer households. This is the first to quantify the general equilibrium impacts of introducing a new cash crop into a poor isolated economy, including impacts on environmentally sensitive fishing activities. We find that the introduction of oil palm production explains the striking growth in income in Uganda’s Ssese Islands, including large-scale production spillovers to non-palm sectors, as well as a significant reduction in pressure on the Lake Victoria fishery. It appears that oil palm development, via a project that connected a commercial aggregator with small-scale farmers, enabled an economy at a low-level equilibrium to transition to a higher equilibrium state, with positive spillovers across households as well as across production sectors. Econometric evidence confirms results from simulations using an island-wide general equilibrium model parameterized from new micro survey data.

Modeling Dynamics of Prey-Predator Fishery Model with Harvesting: A Bioeconomic Model

A mathematical model is proposed and analysed to study the dynamics of two-prey one predator system of fishery model with Holling type II function response. The effect of harvesting was incorporated to both populations and thoroughly analysed. We study the ecological dynamics of the Nile perch, cichlid, and tilapia fishes as prey-predator system of lake Victoria fishery in Tanzania. In both cases, by nondimensionalization of the system, the equilibrium points are computed and conditions for local and global stability of the system are obtained. Condition for local stability was obtained by eigenvalue approach and Routh-Hurwitz Criterion. Moreover, the global stability of the coexistence equilibrium point is proved by defining appropriate Lyapunov function. Bioeconomic equilibrium is analysed and numerical simulations are also carried out to verify the analytical results. The numerical results indicate that the three species would coexist if cichlid and tilapia fishes will not be overharvested as these populations contribute to the growth rates of Nile perch population. The fishery control management should be exercised to avoid overharvesting of cichlid and tilapia fishes.

Stomach contents and stable isotopes confirm ontogenetic diet shifts of Nile perch, Lates niloticus, in southern Lake Victoria

Nile perch (Lates niloticus), a main target for Lake Victoria's fisheries, shifts its diet from invertebrates to fish during its ontogeny. We combined stomach contents with stable isotopes to study these diet shifts in Mwanza Gulf, southern Lake Victoria. During four seasons between 2009 and 2011 we collected and analysed 6697 stomachs and 516 stable isotope samples of Nile perch. Caridina shrimp and haplochromine cichlids were the major food items in Nile perch of 5–40 cm. Based on stomach contents, the shift of dominance of Caridina towards haplochromines in the diet varied from 6.7 cm length in the southern part of the gulf, to >20 cm in the northern part, possibly related to the higher abundance of Caridina in the north. In general isotope-based and stomach-content-based estimates of Nile perch diets agreed. We observed only two discrepancies: in Nile perch >20 cm, the isotope-based estimates of the contribution of haplochromines to the diet were much lower than based on stomach contents and the contribution of juvenile Nile perch to the diet were much higher in the isotope-based estimates than in the stomach based-based estimates. This discrepancy may be explained by e.g. different timespan-coverages between isotopes and stomach contents, by movements of Nile perch between the Gulf and the rest of Lake Victoria, or by the overlapping isotopic profiles of haplochromines and juvenile Nile perch. With the recent recovery of haplochromines in Lake Victoria, Nile perch appears to rely more on this prey again, as it did in the 1980s.

Lake Victoria fisheries: Outlook and management

AbstractThe past subsistence of the Lake Victoria fishery was dominated by rich, diverse haplochromine cichlids. This multispecies fishery has undergone a decline over the past four decades, evolving into a commercial fishery consisting mainly of Nile perch (Lates niloticus), Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and cyprinid (Rastrineobola argentea species). To better understand Lake Victoria fisheries, studies dating as far back as the 1920s have been carried out to assess the status of the fish stocks. These past studies indicated the lake fisheries were declining because of numerous major challenges, including intense fishing, invasive species, loss of biodiversity, ecological alterations, climate change, inadequate information to inform management and unharmonized policies. Numerous policies and regulations have been developed and implemented over the years to address these issues and manage the fisheries sustainably. Most of the interventions have been sectorial, disjointed and unharmonized and have not reduced the declining fish catch rates. With reestablishment of the East Africa Community (EAC) with several institutions in 1994, the Lake Victoria riparian states initiated an ecosystem approach to manage the Lake Victoria fishery resources in a sustainable manner. This study reviews the development of the Lake Victoria fisheries, outlines major past and present management challenges and provides a set of new strategies to manage the lake's fisheries resources, with emphasis on an ecosystem approach.

Eating and Existence on an Island in Southern Uganda

This article examines contemporary ontological conflicts between people who make their living on an island with fish that are considered by fisheries managers to be “commercially extinct” and people who make their living managing “commercially important” fisheries for this region as a whole. It is an experiment in worlding, the work of wading between content and contexts to configure webs of relevant relations through which the politics of eating and existence play out along Uganda's southern littoral. By attending ethnographically to observable actions and concrete practices, I suggest that fishworkers and fisheries managers enact multiple, relatively distinct versions of food, fish, bodies of water, and fisheries. Attending to this multiplicity is crucial for rendering plausible already existing alternatives to an overdetermined future of death, depravity, and collapse that features within scholarly, popular, and policy-oriented accounts of Lake Victoria's fisheries.

Examining local fish consumption in the globalized Lake Victoria fishery

Fish serve as the primary protein source for over 1 billion people. Further, 12% of the world's population fish or trade fish for their livelihoods and 90% are small‐scale fishers in developing countries. Yet declining fish stocks threaten fishery sustainability and fish access for fishing communities. Providing fish for export markets often plays a substantial role in household incomes and is a key management focus of small scale fisheries. However, the effects of managing for export markets and imposing fishing restrictions on access to fish for household consumption are poorly understood.Here we examine the consequence of competing goals of an international export market and local fish consumption through the case of Lake Victoria, Kenya. In this setting, 65% of households are severely food insecure and 32% of children under 3 are stunted. The Lake Victoria fisheries are dominated by a globalized export fishery for Nile perch that coexists with a regional fishery for undersized Nile perch and sardine‐like dagaa. The fish available through these local markets are critical to the nutrition and food security of the local fishing community and surrounding region, providing the predominant animal source food. We combine fishery catch data with a household survey of 303 randomly selected households over one year (5 time points). We examine fish consumption and method of acquiring fish among households to understand availability of fish for household consumption.We find that Nile perch size regulations drive patterns of fish sale and consumption, with local residents relying on undersized catch and sardine‐like dagaa for consumption, while selling large Nile perch. Among fishing families and local residents, 39% of fish consumed were Nile perch while 51% were dagaa. The size of fish available further affects the quantity available, with implications for intra‐household allocation of high quality foods. Thirty percent of all fish eaten and 90% of Nile perch meals were on fish below legal catch size with long term implications for fishery sustainability. Nearly all fish consumed in households were purchased rather than caught by household members, even as fishing livelihoods are widespread. That households rely on purchased, low value, small size, and illegally caught fish has broad nutrition implications for improving patterns of food insecurity and chronic under nutrition.The disjoint in fishery management goals has created a two‐tiered sizing, pricing, and access system with broad implications for local incomes, fish consumption, and food security. Our results also have analogs to the literature examining linkages between agriculture and nutrition, and the extent to which income and home consumption pathways operate. Fishery management that prioritizes exports may be at odds with equitable fish consumption and improved nutrition among fishing families.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported with partial funding from NSF‐GEO grant CNH115057 and an NSF DDRI to KJF.

The challenges of management: Recent experiences in implementing fisheries co‐management in Lake Victoria, Kenya

AbstractThis study examined the efficacy of community‐level fishery co‐management organizations called Beach Management Units (BMUs) along the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria. BMUs were established to enhance sustainable Lake Victoria fishery management through increasing the level of community participation to assist in the administration of fisheries rules and regulations by, and for, the fishers. Inefficiencies have emerged, however, inhibiting the effective execution of sustainable fisheries management by the BMUs. Data were collected from 36 BMUs along the Kenyan shores of Lake Victoria. Descriptive and inferential analyses were performed using SPSS Version 20.0. The results indicated that BMUs are successful at educating fishers and that they are aware of fishing rules and regulations. Nevertheless, high violation rates were also observed, suggesting BMUs have limited impact on fisher decisions to comply with regulations. Data suggest that the failure to comply may be due to lack of adequate financial and equipment resources for monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) operations, making them unable to control illegal fishing in their areas of jurisdiction. Furthermore, financial mechanisms, which would allow BMUs to sustainably fund their administrative and MCS operations, are weak, thereby reducing the BMUs ability to effectively function. The data from this study highlight two activities illustrating significant indices of good performance, namely resolving disputes and receiving visitors. The data also suggest the creation of BMUs has not ensured successful implementation of co‐management of Lake Victoria fisheries. BMUs are successful at activities of a social nature, but have poorly undertaken their core functions related to enforcement and compliance with fishing rules.

Trade and resources: Welfare effects of the Lake Victoria fisheries boom

We examine the welfare implications of the Tanzanian fisheries boom resulting from Lake Victoria Nile perch exports during 1993–2008. In the literature, there are two opposing views on the effect of fish trade: some argue that fish trade can act as an engine of growth, while others contend that trade in fish negatively affects food security, local economies and incomes of the poor. We apply a micro level perspective using data from two years, the first from a 1993 World Bank household survey and the second, our own study from 2008, both covering about 520 households in the two regions, Mwanza and Mara, by Lake Victoria. Our results indicate increasing average income and a reduction in the share of household expenditure on food, both of which are positive indicators of welfare. For the poorest part of the population, urban areas had a substantial reduction in the fraction below the basic needs level, while the change in the rural areas was insignificant. However, growth in both areas was modest and inequality seems to have increased during the period. We conclude that there is more support in our data for a positive than a negative effect of the fish boom on the well-being of those residing in Mwanza and Mara.

ESTIMATING SUSTAINABLE HARVESTS OF LAKE VICTORIA FISHERY

A study was conducted to develop an environmentally sound strategy for sustainable harvesting of fish species of the Lake Victoria fishery. Its objectives were: firstly, to estimate current harvesting rates of fish species; secondly to show how the biomass stock is changing in response to growth rates and harvesting rates; and finally, using a mathematical model, to predict sustainable levels of harvesting the fish species. Lake wide catch data from year 2005 to 2011 were used for various fish species and were analyzed using Least square method with the aid of MAPLE. Harvesting efforts were computed; 0.2805 for the Nile perch representing a maximum sustainable harvest of 74412.8447 tonnes per year; 0.0593 for the Nile tilapia representing a maximum sustainable harvest of 4834.4503 tonnes per year; 0.5334 for the small pelagic silver fish representing 259538.9165 tonnes per year; 0.1158 for the Haplochromines representing a maximum sustainable harvest of 12569.7240 tonnes per year and 0.0108 for the other fish species representing a maximum sustainable harvest of 87.1936 tonnes per year. Further the study revealed that the lake Victoria Received: July 14, 2014 c © 2014 Academic Publications Correspondence author 408 J.P. Mpele, Y. Nkansah-Gyekye, O.D. Makinde fishery is yet sustainable however its sustanability is under 50% for most of fish species. AMS Subject Classification: 65P99, 92B05, 37N25