Inland Fisheries

2.3.5.1 Direct measurement

          Direct measurement has not been adequate to represent the entire diversity of many informal or small scale inland fisheries and is best used for large-scale, managed fisheries. For many of the indirect strategies, participatory approaches that involve the stakeholders will be necessary to promote cooperation, information sharing and compliance with fishery management regulations. Information collection systems must be flexible enough to accommodate the diversity of inland fishery data. There are already rigid, inflexible data collection systems in some areas and it would do little good to replace one for another. Practical alternative approaches to information collecting are agricultural surveys, household surveys, consumption surveys, use of geo-referenced data coupled with habitat productivity estimates and fishery co-management. Each approach has strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of the approach used, training in survey techniques, participatory techniques and gender issues will be necessary to improve the quality of data collected.