Responsible fish utilization

These guidelines have been produced to support the implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries particularly with regard to the need for responsibility in the post– harvest sector of the fish producing industry. The industry that produces fish for food has three major areas of responsibility: to the consumer of the food to ensure that it is safe to eat, is of expected quality and nutritional value, to the resource to ensure that it is not wasted and to the environment to ensure that negative impacts are minimized. In addition the industry has a responsibility to itself to ensure the continued ability of many millions of people throughout the world to earn a gainful living from working within the industry. Article 11.1 of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and other related parts of the Code are concerned particularly with these responsibilities. This publication provides annotation to and guidance on these articles to assist those charged with implementation of the Code to identify possible courses of action necessary to ensure that the industry is conducted in a sustainable manner. (PDF contains 42 pages)

What is the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries?

(PDF contains 17 pages)

Responsible fisheries enhancing poverty alleviation of fishing communities of Lake Kainji

The attributes of responsible fisheries in enhancing Poverty Alleviation of fishing Communities of Lake Kainji were appraised. After impoundment in 1968, the catch per unit effort of fish continued on a downward trend, which suggested a decline in the fish population as a result of improper fishing methods such as the use of small mesh size nets, fish poisoning, destructive fishing gears like beach seine nets. The Nigerian-German (GTZ) Kainji Lake Fisheries Promotion Project intervention brought an increase in yields for the lake in 1996. The estimated annual yield was put at 38.244 metric tones in 1996, an increase of 18 % from the yield recorded in 1995 due to improvement in fishing and conservation methods. The result of catch assessment study carried out in 2003 as a follow up to GTZ intervention is presented. This reveals 15 family and 40 species of fish recorded. Which shows that Lake Kainji still has very high diversity and abundance of fish species. The paper suggests ways to encourage fishing communities to adopt new innovation or strategies by the government and non-governmental organization, which will go a long way in alleviation poverty among the fisher folks