Rebounding Nile perch linked to Lake Victoria conservation effort

Coordinated conservation measures to arrest the steep decline of stocks of the Nile perch in Lake Victoria are showing encouraging results — for fish, if not for fishing communities around the lake.

At the end of each day, the boats return to Mwanza, a city on the edge of Lake Victoria, in the northeast of Tanzania.

The catch is not what it once was: each boat’s crew quickly sells the 50 or so fish they have landed.

Paul Johaiven is one of the fishermen. Like many of the others, the 25-year-old got no further than primary school.

For want of alternatives, he turned to the lake to earn a living.

The Nile perch was introduced to the lake in the 1950s while Tanzania was still a British colony.

It proved a catastrophe for other species in the lake, as this aggressive predator — which can grow as long as two metres, and weigh up to 200 kilos — fed on native species, pushing hundreds of the species to the edge of extinction.

But the fish have also brought substantial incomes to thousands in fishing communities around the lake.

Around 200,000 tonnes of perch are exported overseas every year, bringing in nearly 250 million dollars a year to the three countries on the lake: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. But the fairy tale is over, says Mr Johaiven. “I spend more and more time on the water, and now I have to fish partly at night. Yet I get less and less fish,” he told IPS.

Geofrey Rubanza says: “Not long ago, we caught lots more fish. Now, we have to go further from the shore, and cast our nets a thousand times and still sometimes we come back with nothing. There are too many people fishing on the lake, and therefore less fish.”

Statistics published by the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation (LVFO) confirm his observation.

Where fishing boats each typically brought in 300 kilos of fish from the lake every day in 2005, in 2008 the average daily catch fell to just 80 kilos, according to the LVFO.

The average size of the fish caught is also shrinking: from an average of 50 centimetres long before 2007, perch pulled from the lake are typically no longer than 25 cm today.

Inappropriate fishing

The number of people fishing the lake jumped from around 56,000 in 2000 to 98,000 in 2006; the number of fishing craft doubled to 30,000 in the same period, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.