Fisheries management in the social domain: perspectives from Tanzania's Lake Victoria fishery

For a long time, the Tanzanian Fisheries Department has managed Tanzanian fisheries without incorporating other stakeholders within its management framework. On lake Victoria, the persistent use of illegal fishing gear and declining catches have led the government to realize that this system of fisheries management may no longer be viable, and have sought to incorporate fishing communities into the management structure. Through the creation of beach management units (BMUs), the Fisheries Departments have sought to persuade fishing communities to implement and enforce Tanzania's fishing regulations and to monitor the fishery. In this paper we explore a recently gathered data set that yields information on, amongst others, how Tanzanian fishing communities perceive the state of their resource base, how they view their relationship with the Fisheries Department, the efficacy of fishing regulations and other variables. We draw on a series of criteria developed by Ostron (1990) for institutional 'robustness' to explore various areas of institutional development on Lake Victoria, and to try and anticipate how the BMUs will fare. We argue there are many socio-political and economic factors that will determine how communities will receive and perceive their responsibilities towards government-imposed administrative structures at the local level, these will become 'socialized' such that they will vary from place to place. While this may bode well for problems of heterogeneity, it does not necessarily mean that fisheries management objective on Lake Victoria will be met

Environmental and social impact monitoring of the Bujagali Hydropower Project (BHPP), Uganda Fisheries Component: monthly patterns in physico-chemical conditions and fish catch in the immediate vicinity of the Bujagali Hydropower construction site, 29th September - 28th October 2007

Following the commencement of construction works of a 250 MW hydropower plant at Dumbbell Island in the Upper Victoria Nile in September 2007, BEL requested NaFIRRI to conduct continuous monitoring of fish catches at two transects i.e. the immediate upstream transect of the project site (Kalange-Makwanzi) and the immediate downstream .transect (Buyala-Kikubamutwe). The routine monitoring surveys were designed to be conducted twice a week at each of the tWo transects. It was anticipated that major immediate impacts were to occur during construction, and these needed to be known by BEL as part of a mitigation strategy. For example, the construction of it cofferdam could be accompanied by rapid changes in water quality and quantity downstream of the construction. These changes in turn could affect the fish catch and would probably be missed by the quarterly monitoring already in place. Therefore, a major cbjective of the more regular and rapid monitoring was to discern immediate impacts of construction activities by focusing on selected water quality parameters (total suspended solids, water conductivity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH) and fish catch characteristics (total catch, catch rates and value of the catch)