Illegal fishing in L. Victoria threatens the livelihood of 3.5m people

The livelihoods of 3.5 million East Africans who depend directly on Lake Victoria are threatened by illegal fishing, overfishing, climate change and pollution.

Lake Victoria is the largest inland fishery on the continent, valued at $400 million annually.

These threats — in addition to funding challenges and high poverty levels among the populations that live on the lake’s shores — are almost overwhelming a key institution of the EAC: The Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation (LVFO).

The LVEO is mandated to ensure that the resource is used sustainably.

The governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania adopted the LVFO Convention in 1994 to implement a 15-year project for the lake’s sustainable use.

The implementation started in 1999 and will run until 2015, with a strategic vision to use the lake to promote economic growth and fight poverty — if the communities refrain from over exploiting the resource.

It is estimated that Lake Victoria has two million tonnes of fish annually, with about one million extracted every year.

The fishery is valued at $400 million locally, but has averaged $300 million in exports over the past four years — a significant contribution to the region’s economic growth.

On top of this, Lake Victoria alone meets fish consumption needs of 22 million people in East Africa, but this could change soon unless the region quickly ends all illegal fishing activities on the lake.

The LVFO Council of Ministers —Uganda’s Hope Mwesigye, Kenya’s Paul Nyongesa Otuoma and John Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania — met in Nairobi early this month.

They issued a joint communiqué highlighting, among other critical issues, persistent illegalities on the lake.

The ministers observed, for instance, that efforts undertaken to eliminate illegal fishing — including prohibitive fines and maximum levy per fishing boat — by the end of this year have not significantly changed the status quo.

“The partner states cannot meet the target of reducing illegalities to zero by December 2009. The Nile perch biomass in the lake remains seriously threatened,” the communiqué reads in part, adding that Nile perch stocks have declined from a biomass of 1.2 million tonnes in 2000 to 331,000 this year.

In February this year, the Council of Ministers meeting in Dar es Salaam set a target to reduce illegalities on Lake Victoria by 50 per cent and to zero by the end of 2009 to allow Nile perch stocks to grow.

But the challenges that LVFO faces in implementing its mandate — high poverty levels around the lake, inadequate funding, ecological damage, depletion of fish stocks, poor market access and encroachment by fishermen on waters of partner states — pretty much mirror those of the larger EAC itself.