Inland Fisheries

2.3.5.2 Indirect measurements

          Yield is a primary information need. There are direct methods to measure yield but these are difficult to apply to the entire inland water ecosystems that include lakes, temporary water bodies, rivers, swamps and other wetlands. Therefore, alternative approaches will be required to supplement direct measures of fishery yield.

          Inland fisheries are extremely diverse and composed of both formal and informal fishery sectors that must be treated differently. Methodologies that work in one area may be inappropriate for others. A certain amount of standardization of terminology, approaches and methods will be essential for basin wide planning and information exchange, however, it is recognized that the diversity of situations will require a diversity of approaches.

          Given limited human and financial resources to manage inland fisheries one cannot measure everything that is needed in all areas. Thus, focused studies can provide information on particular fisheries or habitats and these results can then be extrapolated to a wide area. An ongoing and sustainable data collection programme needs to be based on activities that can be done well with a limited amount of financial and human resources inland fisheries and fishing activity often have a strong seasonal component. Data collection and interpretation must take into account how habitats, production, and human activity change in response to the changing environmental conditions. The capacity of local fishery resource officers needs to be increased. Training in standard and new data collection, fish identification and community participation techniques will be required. The status of government fishery officers is often very low and leads to lack of motivation, which results in poor performance of duties. Once the importance of inland fisheries is fully appreciated, the status of the officers responsible for managing the resource should improve.

          There are data collection systems in place. Significant progress can be made by working with information that is already available in project reports, government offices, NGO and IGOs. Modification of existing mechanisms to make them more flexible, to ensure they do not bias results in regards to inland fisheries, such the agriculture census, or to ensure that they access all available information, such as information from women and children, can be expected to greatly improve the quality of information needed for fishery management. Inland fisheries do not exist in isolation of other sectors and there are many other users of inland water resources. Inland waters are most strongly impacted by events occurring outside the sector. Therefore, it will be crucial for policy makers and managers of the inland fisheries to form partnerships with stakeholders in other sectors. Often government departments can help form linkages to other sectors where fishers have difficulty in establishing relations. The private sector must also be involved in the partnership, for example access to middlemen and brokers could improve information on commercial (formal) fisheries. Many member countries have limited financial resources and have acknowledged that external assistance will be needed to improve their data collection and fishery management capacities. Training is needed on a variety of subjects and should include local communities and training-of-trainers. Given the productivity of the inland fisheries, the large number of people dependent on them and the wealth of biological and cultural diversity of many inland aquatic ecosystems, donor support in improving information for fishery management is well justified.