Wetlands and Aquatic Resources of Ethiopia: Status, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

To trace the history o f the fishery o f Lake Ziway is difficult because only little is documented in the literature. Elder people say that the islanders always fished using cast nets and hook and lines. Like other island populations in Ethiopia they used an indigenous boat type locally called bofofe. The boat can carry two persons or one person plus his light fishing gear and catch. The limited resource o f arable land on the islands made cattle rearing and farming nearly impossible. The use o f fish resources as a source protein was the only possibility for the islanders. According to Huttnagel report o f 1961 (LFDP, 1993), the fishermen o f Lake Ziway used gill nets and he recommended that they should adopt the beach seining technique practiced in Lake Awassa. He reported that licensed merchants came from Addis Ababa to Lake Ziway to buy fish especially during lent (fasting season). During the EEC~Fisheries Development Project-phase I (1981-83) 1000 gill net o f 100 nun mesh size and 39 beach seines o f 80 mm mesh size were imported and distributed within the following years. Under the previous Socialist Government the fishermen cooperatives were formed and only members o f a cooperative had the legal right to fish with nets. For personal consumption people living around the lake were allowed to fish up to 5 kg per head with hook and line. The minimum allowed mesh size for gill nets was 100 mm (stretched) and 80 mm for beach seines (in the wings and the cod end). During the 80's more and more fishermen did not follow this rule. The mesh sizes and fishes caught became smaller and smaller. The local fishery officers and the government sensed the danger that the use o f small meshes beach seines endangered the fish stock. In 1984 an agreement was reached between the local administration and the fishermen cooperatives to increase the mesh sizes again to the recommended level. But in 1985 the situation went out o f control, The national administration instructed confiscation o f all beach seines used in the lake. The resistance o f fishermen against this radical measure led finally to the decision o f the party to close the lake completely, until 1987. Following the closure period, the catch increased significantly as reported by the fishermen. Until the change o f government in 1991 only cooperatively organized fishermen were allowed fishing in the lake. These cooperatives still exist nowadays. Since 1992 many people have started fishing with out being members of cooperatives. Due to lack of effective control over the access to the lake and fishing methods, the mesh sizes o f the gears have been decreased and the size of fishes caught have become smaller from year to year over the last eight years. Any economic activity requires assessment it it has to be properly managed. Fish can not normally be seen until they are actually caught. Indirect methods are used to find out about the stocks. This makes fish stock assessment so different from other activities and it requires specific data collection system and materials. Organized system for the collection and analysis of catch-effort and lengthfrequency data was started under the impulse of the Lake Fisheries Development Project (LFDP) phase II in 1994. From the data it is possible to make preliminary management recommendations but there is clearl} a need to continue with data collection and exploratory fishery programs in order to further refine the estimates made and ensure that they keep up w ith the changing biological, economical and social conditions. Managing fisheries means to a large extent managing the commercial fisheries. This monitoring allows introducing corrective measures to limit the total effort before the fishery declines too much. Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is probably the most widely used concept to define optimal level. This is because social and political considerations are difficult to translate in terms of biomass of fishing effort and its objectivity and relative simplicity. It is the highest y ield (in terms of biomass or weight) that may be taken from a fishers w ith out endangering its continuation. Catch effort data are needed to make predictions about the possible impact of management decisions.