Relevance of the programmes of the federal fisheries schools to Nigeria's fishing industry

Nigeria's three federal fisheries schools are administered by three autonomous research institutes located in Lagos, New Bussa, and Maiduguri. The schools were established at different periods to train the required manpower for Nigeria's fishing industry which has remained predominantly artisanal since its inception in 1942 as a Second World War exigency. Despite the establishment of the schools, the industry's manpower is still being dominated by non-nationals especially in the capture fisheries sub-sector. The common features of the schools include the apparent insensitivity of their programmes to the industry's dynamic manpower needs; the absence of coordination of their programmes by a national body which would have ensured that the schools are able to communicate with one another and are willing to act and share a purpose. The need and the methodology for a change of emphasis from the on-going training of extension agents and officers to that of fishing operatives and technicians to enable Nigeria effectively harness her local fish resources towards self-sufficiency is highlighted.

A Low-level Geographic Information System for coastal zone management, with applications to Brunei Darussalam: Part I: The concept and its design elements

This contribution is the first part of a four-part series documenting the development of B:RUN, a software program which reads data for common spreadsheets and presents them as low-resolution maps of slates and processes. The program emerged from a need which arose during a project in Brunei Darussalam for a 'low level' approach for researchers to communicate findings as efficiently and expeditiously as possible. Part I provides a overview of the concept and design elements of B:RUN. Part II will highlight results of the economics components of the program evaluating different fishing regimes, sailing distances from ports and fleet operating costs. Environmental aspects will be presented in Part III in the form of overlay maps. Part IV will summarize the implications of B:RUN results to coastal and fishery resources management in Brunei Darussalam and show how this approach can be adapted to other coastlines and used as a teaching and training tool. The following three parts will be published in future editions of Naga, the ICLARM Quarterly. The program is available through ICLARM.

Recreational anglers' valuation of near-shore marine fisheries in Florida

This report describes and summarizes the results from a state-wide survey of Florida resident saltwater anglers. The survey was designed to provide estimates of the economic value anglers place on marginal changes in management of selected near-shore marine species. The Contingent valuation method was used to elicit angler willingness to pay for changes in management for redfish, seatrout , mullet, sheepshead, pompano. and king mackerel. Contingent valuation is a process in which respondents are presented with a detailed scenario that describes an opportunity to express their willingness to pay for a proposed change in current conditions. The process consists of three parts. First. the change in current conditions, or the "good" to be valued is described. Second, the payment method is described. The payment method is usually closely related to typical methods of buying goods similar to the one to be valued. Finally. the respondent is asked how much they would pay for the good described in the scenario. A special saltwater fishing license stamp that would allow the holder to take advantage of the described management change was used as a payment mechanism. (PDF contains 147 pages.)

Involvement of fishermen children in fishing activities in Lake Chad region

Five fishing villages in Lake Chad Basin region of Borno State (Nigeria) were assessed for the roles of children in fishing activities in the area. The villages surveyed include: Bundaram, Yobe, Daba masara, Dumba and Doro. The results show that the children were largely between 12-18 years of age in the villages. Generally, the younger children (less than 12 years) participate in activities that require no technicality and little physical strength, while the older children (12 years and above) engage in skillful fabrication of gear and fishing activities. Some activities in the surveyed villages were gender specific. Such activities include fish processing (smoking) which is exclusive for female and few male children, who carry out preliminary cleaning of fish before any processing method is applied. 80% of the children in the five fishing villages claimed proper understanding of the techniques and procedure involved in most fishing activities. About 65% of the children sampled showed willingness to become full time fishermen while 22% were uncertain and claimed that they do not know what the future holds for them. 15% of them resolved to migrate to town so that they could live a city life

Media of communication among fishermen around Kainji Lake basin

The findings are presented of a study conducted in the framework of the Nigerian-German Kainji Lake Fisheries Promotion Project to examine the role and structure of communication in fishing villages around Kainji Lake in Nigeria. The major aim was to be able to utilize the knowledge at a later stage in the project cycle to pass on fisheries extension messages to fishing communities. The study had the following terms of reference: 1) describe the structure and processes of communication of fishermen around Kainji Lake; 2) identify the formal and informal media of communication used by the fishermen to communicate information concerning their job; 3) describe the problems inhibiting usage of the different media identified; 4) ascertain the extent of use of mass media by fishermen around the lake; and, 5) identify acceptable ways by which fisheries information can be repackaged for the use of extension workers. (PDF contains 58 pages)

Poverty alleviation among fishermen within the floodplains of Kaduna River: implication for introducing commercial fish farming at village level in Doko local government area of Niger State, Nigeria

A diagnostic survey was conducted among the fishermen in six selected villages in Doko Local Government Area of Niger State. One hundred and fifty fishermen were randomly selected and interviewed to find out whether or not they had interest in commercial fish farming aimed at improving their livelihood. The dwindling fish catches in the natural flood plain ponds and Ex-bow Lakes continue to have a serious negative effect on the socio-economic well being of the village communities in question. A break on natural regular annual flooding of the plains had resulted into very low natural fish recruitment. Data analysis using simple descriptive statistics revealed that land tenure system, educational status, inadequate infrastructural facilities, religious taboos, existing fish species among others were found to be favourable indices for commercial fish farming. However, serious conflicts among the fishermen concerning the ownership status of these natural fish ponds are found to be major obstacles to commercial fish farming despite that the traditional ownership of the ponds were vested in the lands of individuals and village communities. Extensive fish farming and small-scale fish farming in the ponds and Ex-bow Lake with improved management practices are considered to be profitable venture. Despite the fact that fish seeds supply and extension effort are still inadequate, the fish farmers have indicated willingness to adopt commercial fish farming in the Ex-bow Lakes and flood plains in order to restore abundant fish production thereby providing for their food security and also increasing the daily income

Marine Fisheries Stock Assessment Improvement Plan: report of the National Marine Fisheries Service National Task Force for Improving Fish Stock Assessments

This report argues for greatly increased resources in terms of data collection facilities and staff to collect, process, and analyze the data, and to communicate the results, in order for NMFS to fulfill its mandate to conserve and manage marine resources. In fact, the authors of this report had great difficulty defining the "ideal" situation to which fisheries stock assessments and management should aspire. One of the primary objectives of fisheries management is to develop sustainable harvest policies that minimize the risks of overfishing both target species and associated species. This can be achieved in a wide spectrum of ways, ranging between the following two extremes. The first is to implement only simple management measures with correspondingly simple assessment demands, which will usually mean setting fishing mortality targets at relatively low levels in order to reduce the risk of unknowingly overfishing or driving ecosystems towards undesirable system states. The second is to expand existing data collection and analysis programs to provide an adequate knowledge base that can support higher fishing mortality targets while still ensuring low risk to target and associated species and ecosystems. However, defining "adequate" is difficult, especially when scientists have not even identified all marine species, and information on catches, abundances, and life histories of many target species, and most associated species, is sparse. Increasing calls from the public, stakeholders, and the scientific community to implement ecosystem-based stock assessment and management make it even more difficult to define "adequate," especially when "ecosystem-based management" is itself not well-defined. In attempting to describe the data collection and assessment needs for the latter, the authors took a pragmatic approach, rather than trying to estimate the resources required to develop a knowledge base about the fine-scale detailed distributions, abundances, and associations of all marine species. Thus, the specified resource requirements will not meet the expectations of some stakeholders. In addition, the Stock Assessment Improvement Plan is designed to be complementary to other related plans, and therefore does not duplicate the resource requirements detailed in those plans, except as otherwise noted.

Economic valuation of natural resources: a handbook for coastal resource policymakers

Professionals who are responsible for coastal environmental and natural resource planning and management have a need to become conversant with new concepts designed to provide quantitative measures of the environmental benefits of natural resources. These amenities range from beaches to wetlands to clean water and other assets that normally are not bought and sold in everyday markets. At all levels of government — from federal agencies to townships and counties — decisionmakers are being asked to account for the costs and benefits of proposed actions. To non-specialists, the tools of professional economists are often poorly understood and sometimes inappropriate for the problem at hand. This handbook is intended to bridge this gap. The most widely used organizing tool for dealing with natural and environmental resource choices is benefit-cost analysis — it offers a convenient way to carefully identify and array, quantitatively if possible, the major costs, benefits, and consequences of a proposed policy or regulation. The major strength of benefit-cost analysis is not necessarily the predicted outcome, which depends upon assumptions and techniques, but the process itself, which forces an approach to decision-making that is based largely on rigorous and quantitative reasoning. However, a major shortfall of benefit-cost analysis has been the difficulty of quantifying both benefits and costs of actions that impact environmental assets not normally, nor even regularly, bought and sold in markets. Failure to account for these assets, to omit them from the benefit-cost equation, could seriously bias decisionmaking, often to the detriment of the environment. Economists and other social scientists have put a great deal of effort into addressing this shortcoming by developing techniques to quantify these non-market benefits. The major focus of this handbook is on introducing and illustrating concepts of environmental valuation, among them Travel Cost models and Contingent Valuation. These concepts, combined with advances in natural sciences that allow us to better understand how changes in the natural environment influence human behavior, aim to address some of the more serious shortcomings in the application of economic analysis to natural resource and environmental management and policy analysis. Because the handbook is intended for non-economists, it addresses basic concepts of economic value such as willingness-to-pay and other tools often used in decision making such as costeffectiveness analysis, economic impact analysis, and sustainable development. A number of regionally oriented case studies are included to illustrate the practical application of these concepts and techniques.

Marine eutrophication review. Part 1: Quantifying the effects of nitrogen enrichment on phytoplankton in coastal ecosystems; Part 2: Bibliography with abstracts

Professionals who are responsible for coastal environmental and natural resource planning and management have a need to become conversant with new concepts designed to provide quantitative measures of the environmental benefits of natural resources. These amenities range from beaches to wetlands to clean water and other assets that normally are not bought and sold in everyday markets. At all levels of government — from federal agencies to townships and counties — decisionmakers are being asked to account for the costs and benefits of proposed actions. To non-specialists, the tools of professional economists are often poorly understood and sometimes inappropriate for the problem at hand. This handbook is intended to bridge this gap. The most widely used organizing tool for dealing with natural and environmental resource choices is benefit-cost analysis — it offers a convenient way to carefully identify and array, quantitatively if possible, the major costs, benefits, and consequences of a proposed policy or regulation. The major strength of benefit-cost analysis is not necessarily the predicted outcome, which depends upon assumptions and techniques, but the process itself, which forces an approach to decision-making that is based largely on rigorous and quantitative reasoning. However, a major shortfall of benefit-cost analysis has been the difficulty of quantifying both benefits and costs of actions that impact environmental assets not normally, nor even regularly, bought and sold in markets. Failure to account for these assets, to omit them from the benefit-cost equation, could seriously bias decisionmaking, often to the detriment of the environment. Economists and other social scientists have put a great deal of effort into addressing this shortcoming by developing techniques to quantify these non-market benefits. The major focus of this handbook is on introducing and illustrating concepts of environmental valuation, among them Travel Cost models and Contingent Valuation. These concepts, combined with advances in natural sciences that allow us to better understand how changes in the natural environment influence human behavior, aim to address some of the more serious shortcomings in the application of economic analysis to natural resource and environmental management and policy analysis. Because the handbook is intended for non-economists, it addresses basic concepts of economic value such as willingness-to-pay and other tools often used in decision making such as costeffectiveness analysis, economic impact analysis, and sustainable development. A number of regionally oriented case studies are included to illustrate the practical application of these concepts and techniques.