Publication Date:
2021-06-30
Description:
Many fisheries are potentially very valuable. According to a recent report by the World Bank and the FAO (2008), global fisheries rents could be as high as US$ 40-60 billion annually on a sustainable basis. However, according to the report, due to the “common property problem”, most fisheries of the world are severely overexploited and generate no economic rents. The Lake Victoria Nile perch fishery could be among the most valuable fisheries in the world. Unfortunately, also this fishery has fallen prey to the common property problem with excessive fishing effort, dwindling stocks and declining profitability. As a result, there is a large and growing rents loss in this fishery (compared to the optimal) reducing economic welfare and economic growth opportunities in the countries sharing this fishery. As in other fisheries, the biological and economic recovery of this fishery can only come though improvedfisheries management
Description:
The African Journal of Tropical Hydrobiology and
Fisheries was first published in 1971 by what was then
the East African Freshwater Fisheries Organisation in
Jinja, Uganda. Over the years since then, it has
experienced many difficulties, some as a result of political
and economic events in East Africa, and only the first
four volumes were published up to 1975. It appeared
again, now under the aegis of the Ugandan Fisheries
Research Institute, which had succeeded the East African
Freshwater Fisheries Organisation, with Volume 5 being
published two decades later in 1994. It was transferred to
the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation in 1998 who
published it until 2003, with Volume 11 being the most
recent. Delays in publishing since then have resulted from
the problems in assembling enough material of a
sufficiently high standard to enable a complete volume to
be printed. These delays affected continuity and
discouraged authors from submitting papers with the
result that many papers that should have been published
in this journal went elsewhere.
In order to deal with this problem, the decision was
taken to publish the journal as an open-access electronic
journal with papers being published on the website as
soon as they have been accepted. This will greatly
increase their international exposure and raise the profile
of the journal. This, in turn, should encourage potential
authors to submit work of a higher quality and allow the
journal to take its rightful place as one of Africa’s leading
scholarly publications.
Back in 1971 the first issue of the journal stated that
it would accept ‘... original and well supported ideas on
techniques, methodology and research findings from
scientists, fishery officers, fishery economists and
sociologists. The journal will therefore strengthen the
African research scientist by making research material
available and also [by] increasing the awareness and
utility of aquatic resources.” These objectives are as valid
now as they were then and we hope that the “new”
African Journal of Tropical Hydrobiology and Fisheries
will do just this.
The Lake Victoria Stakeholder’s Conference, Kampala, October 2008
Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, supports one of
the world’s largest inland fisheries yielding almost one
million tonnes per annum. More than one million people
depend directly on the fishery, with perhaps the same
number depending on it less directly through ancillary
activities such as fish trading, boat building, and so on. In
addition, the export fishery based on the Nile perch Lates
niloticus (L.) makes a substantial contribution to the
economies of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
The lake and its fisheries face a number of problems,
however, many of which are common to other African
lakes. The introduction of Nile perch drastically changed
its ecosystems thereby focussing attention on the problem
of alien species and how to balance their potential
benefits against their ecological costs. One of these
ecological costs may have been the revelation that the
lake had become eutrophic; this began in the 1960s but
only became obvious much later. This has raised the issue
of population growth and environmental degradation in
the lake basin as a whole and the possible effects this
might have on fisheries productivity. Other issues, such as
climate change will also need to be considered.
There is increasing evidence of overfishing in the lake
and innovative steps have been taken to introduce systems
of co-management that involve the fishing communities
in management decisions. This is important because it
reminds scientists and administrators that fisheries
involve people and it is impossible to manage a fishery
without understanding the social and economic
consequences of management decisions.
For this reason, the Lake Victoria Fisheries
Organisation, with financial assistance from the European
Union and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ),
organised a major Lake Victoria Stakeholder’s
Conference in Kampala in October 2008. Many of these
issues were discussed at that conference and it was
decided to publish some of these papers in the inaugural
volume of the “new-look” African Journal of Tropical
Hydrobiology and Fisheries since they discuss issues of
relevance across the continent.
We hope readers will find these papers of interest and
that this will encourage them to submit their own
manuscripts to the journal which is, after all, an African
journal, not one concerned with Lake Victoria one.
D. NYEKO
Executive Secretary, Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation
1
Keywords:
Management
;
Conservation
;
Fisheries
;
Biology
;
Aquaculture
;
Environment
;
Fisheries rents
;
fisheries rents loss
;
Nile perch fishery
;
Lake Victoria
;
fisheries management
;
common property problem.
Repository Name:
AquaDocs
Type:
article
Format:
application/pdf
Format:
application/pdf
Format:
2-8
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