Inland fisheries evolution and management

Case studies from four continents

By

Robin L. Welcomme& John Valbo-Jorgensen

 and Ashley S. Halls

FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper 579

Abstract

In 2009, inland fisheries produced some 10 million  tonnes of fish. Despite their importance to rural communities, especially in the least-developed countries, little attention has been paid to this sector in recent years. As a result, there is a deficit in management of the fisheries and also an increasing threat to freshwater by a number of non-fishery users of the aquatic resource. As part of an effort to raise awareness of the problems facing inland fisheries and to examine more closely the various issues, this document reviews four of the world’s best-documented inland fisheries: the Amazon, Lake Constance, the Mekong and Lake Victoria. These represent two lake fisheries and two river fisheries drawn from a wide geographical sample – Africa, Asia, South America and Europe.

 This technical paper draws conclusions from the four case studies and more general experience as to some of the main issues facing inland fisheries. Inland fishery statistics are generally are very poor, so knowledge of the actual contribution of the sector to food security is not known. Nevertheless, inland fisheries employ about 56 million people directly and indirectly. The state of the stocks of fish in many fisheries is not known because of the low level of research across the many rivers and lakes. However, it is understood that, in many cases, the main driver of the fish assemblages is not the way in which the fishery is managed but rather the state of the environment as acted upon by other human uses. This means that mechanisms are needed to improve both management of fisheries through forms of comanagement and collaboration at the national and international level between agencies responsible for the management of the aquatic resource in general.

Contents

1 - Status and trends of the fishery resources of the Amazon Basin in Brazil

<!--The structure or classification of Amazonian fisheries

<!--Statistics used for evaluating landings

<!--Inland capture commercial fishery production

<!--Species contributing to Amazon fisheries

<!--The status of inland fisheries resources

<!--Catfishes – Characids – Arapaima gigas

<!--Inland capture fishery of ornamental fishes

<!--Employment and income

<!--Status of management of fisheries in the region and the

<!--Management scheme/measures in place

 2 - Lake Constance fish and fisheries

<!--The lake

<!--The fish community

<!--Fisheries management  Governance -  Stocking

<!--Professional fisheries

<!--Anglers yield

<!--Discussion

3 - The stationary trawl (dai) fishery of the Tonle Sap – Great Lake system, Cambodia

<!--Target species, gear and fish disposa

•   Species caught
•   Gear – the dai
•   Disposal of the catch

·        Management

  Monitoring and evaluation

•   Catch, effort and CPUE trends
•   Trends in species diversity and catch composition
•   Trends in fish size (mean weight)

4 - Status, trends and management of the Lake Victoria fisheries

<!--Trends in catch

  Trends in effort and estimated total catch rates

•   Trends in the most important fish stocks

·        Stock assessment and drivers of the fishery

<!--The history and institutional structures for the management of the fisheries

•  Ongoing efforts under the comanagement approach

·        Concluding remarks

5 - Review of the case studies

The case studies

Fishery statistics

Prep. / Ayman Ashry

Manage. / Zeinab Osman