This document is part of a series of 5 technical manuals produced by the Challenge Program Project CP34 “Improved fisheries productivity and management in tropical reservoirs”. The objective of this technical manual is to relay the field experience of a group of scientists who have worked extensively in small fisheries in sub-Sahara Africa and Asia and lay out a series of simple and pragmatic pointers on how to establish and run initiatives for community catch assessment. The manual relies in particular on practical experience gained implementing Project 34 of the Challenge Programme on Water and Food: Improved Fisheries Productivity and Management in Tropical Reservoirs. (PDF contains 26 pages)
“Mwelu mukata mukandanshe” – “the wide waters that the locust cannot cross” is the full name of Lake Mweru, the lake situated on the border of Northern-Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Luapula valley. Its fish provides the basis for food, employment and income for the estimated 400 000 people that live there. Lake Mweru and the Luapula River with its floodplains, swamps and lagoons have a long history of fishing in connection with cassava farming as main economic and subsistence activities (Aarnink, 1997). Since the beginning of last century, fishing has been, and still is, closely linked by trade to the towns of the Copperbelt and the diamond mines in Zambia and Congo (Musambachime, 1981; Gordon, 2000). Around 1944, after the decimation of the crocodile population instigated by the Belgian colonial authorities, the river and lake area became fully accessible for fishing activities (Musambachime, 1987). It facilitated the development of a fishing pattern, mainly conducted by European fishermen that caused the decline and virtual destruction of a once important fishery on the cyprinid Labeo altivelis.1 At its height in the 1940s this species contributed 40–60 percent of the commercial catch, but was fished down within four years during its spawning migrations upstream the Luapula river to less than three percent of the total catch, never to recover again (Kimpe, 1964; Gordon, 2003). With the increase in population in the valley, roughly following the demographic rate of increase in both Zambia and the Congo, fishing pressure increased as well. Between 1965 and 1970 total catches and catch rates of the cichlid Oreochromis mweruensis2, declined severely, which led to concern about the sustainability of the fishery on this now most important stock (Aarnink, 1999a; Aarnink, 1999b). Two decades later, despite an enormous increase in fishing effort by any measure, it returned as one of the most important stocks in the fishery and allowed two new fish freezing factories to thrive in the 1990s. Oreochromis and other cichlids remained the mainstay of the fishery to this day, roughly taking 60–70 percent of the long-term average catch of 8 300 tonnes that the Zambian part of the fishery has produced since 1955 (Figure 1).
Shifting political alliances and new environmental challenges are prompting debate over processes of sub-regionalisation and whether the interplay between multiple scales of governance leads to positive synergistic outcomes or negative institutional disruption. Regional management of tuna fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean is an example where a web of treaties, conventions and institutional frameworks underlie international cooperation. Through examining the interplay between the regional Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and sub-regional Parties to the Nauru Agreement, this paper explores the extent to which the PNA and WCPFC interact in the management of regional tuna fisheries. The results demonstrate that for contested marine resources such as fisheries, international sub-regions can go beyond functional units to also present wider opportunities to shift power relations in favour of small island states. Additionally, the presence of sub-regional groups like the PNA has served to challenge the performance of the WCPFC, stimulating greater debate and progress within the regional body. The paper concludes that the combined work of the PNA and the WCPFC puts them ahead on many issues and may represent a testing ground for a functional multilateralism utilising both regional and sub-regional governance platforms for the management of shared resources.
Incidental fisheries bycatch contributes to the dire situation of endangered, threatened and protected (ETP) species. Few published estimates of the severity of fisheries impacts exist as incidental bycatch is difficult to monitor, and reporting can be a sensitive matter for fishers. This paper addresses these sensitivities, the reasons for non-reporting, and possible solutions, using bycatch of the critically endangered European sturgeon (Acipenser sturio L.) in the Northeast Atlantic fisheries as a case study. This study comprises 36 interviews with fishers, fisher representatives, environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, and governments involved in European sturgeon conservation from four countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Fishers experience difficult economic circumstances, while fear of restrictions in their fishing area and gear makes them reluctant to report such rare bycatch. Adequate management of the European sturgeon and other marine ETP species is worsened by a lack of governmental coordination, and trust issues fuelled by some NGOs' communication strategies using iconic species to lobby for fishing restrictions. This paper discusses solutions to strengthen fishers' cooperation in ETP species research. This would need to include developing a shared vision, clear role separation between stakeholders, communication and trust building.
Sustainability in fisheries has over the past decades evolved from a single species maximization concept to covering ecosystem and biodiversity considerations. This expansion of the notion, together with increased evidence that the targeted removal of selected components of the fish community may have adverse ecological consequences, poses a serious dilemma to the conventional fisheries management approach of protecting juveniles and targeting adults. Recently, the idea of balanced harvest, i.e., harvesting all components in the ecosystem in proportion to their productivity, has been promoted as a unifying solution in accordance with the ecosystem approach to fisheries, but this will require a fundamental change to management. In this paper, we review the objectives, theoretical background, and practicalities of securing high yielding fisheries in inland waters, with empirical examples from tropical freshwater fisheries which satisfy the extended objectives of minimal impact on community and ecosystem structure. We propose a framework of ecological indicators to assess these objectives.
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