Area-based Fishing Management

One of our highest goals is to have a holistic, functioning fish reserve.  This is no mean feat; a functioning reserve means a breeding area that protects the lake environment, boosts fish stocks and lends itself to important research.  With often stretched resources to maintain the reserve we must look at innovative sustainable options that are more resilient to obstacles we are sure to face in the future.  Our main challenges in running a reserve are; lack of resources for security, lack of compliance from local fishermen, lack of resources for maintained and long term research

Uganda is a predominantly artisan fishery with most fish caught in dugout canoes by fisherman from local communities.  As an open-access fishery Lake Victoria has a mainly migratory fisher-folk population moving from one area of above average abundance of fish to the next only leaving when it becomes too difficult to catch enough fish in the area.  This leads to a tradition of ecological depletion and bad lake stewardship which the lake environment has a hard time to recover from. 

Moving towards an area based fishing approach (often called Territorial Usage Rights for Fishermen or TURFs) is the first step in empowering local fishing communities to care more for their local fishery.  Registering fishermen to a specific landing site prevents the movement of boats, giving rise to better control of how lake resources are being harvested.  The effectiveness of TURFs has made them grow in popularity and implementation around the world.  Research and experience from successful TURFs around the world have shown again and again that these systems directly benefit local communities and encourage stewardship of marine resources. These programs are frequently designed to:

• Improve management at a fine scale. Local science and community participation in TURF management allow for locally-appropriate decision making.
• Directly benefit habitat conservation. By allocating a specific marine area, TURFs encourage conservation of fish stocks and the marine ecosystem. Fishermen are rewarded for protecting habitats and fishing responsibly.
• Directly benefit small, local fishery-dependent communities. TURFs can increase the income of artisanal fishermen and support food security for the communities that rely on the resource.

In our case we wish to take the concept or TURFs and pair it with our no-take fish breeding area.  This process involves identifying specific areas or TURFs within the reserve and allocating to a limited number of local fishermen to fish inside them.  These areas are chosen using findings from an ecological survey as well as the knowledge of local fishermen.  Theory and practice show that fishermen have greater incentive to help implement, enforce and manage TURF-Reserves because they directly benefit from the fish that spill over from no-take reserves to their TURFs. This fishery management combination is growing in interest globally, allowing local fishermen to reap the rewards of being responsible stewards of their fisheries while also mitigating the lack of resources needed to maintain a no-take fish breeding area.