Download Implementing the National Fisheries Policy through Field Lessons

Implementing the National Fisheries Policy through Field Lessons and
Experiences: Challenges and Options for Alternative Policy and
Governance System
The Case for Managing Lakes Victoria,
Albert and Kyoga Fisheries in Uganda
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Seremos Kamuturaki
Uganda Fisheries and Fish Conservation Association (UFFCA), Kamwokya Town,
Old Kiira Road,
P.O. Box 11516, Kampala-UGANDA
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Abstract
Between 2000 and 2003, Government of Uganda through its Department of Fisheries began a long process of
transforming the fishing industry. Major problems identified by then were fisheries resources depletion,
environmental damage and poverty in fishing communities due to resource mismanagement as a result of poor
system of fisheries governance. To address this, in 2004, the department developed the new national fisheries
policy. The policy was aimed at improving livelihoods and alleviating poverty in fishing communities through
sustainable fisheries management. Implementation of the policy at local level was decentralized to Local
Governments and further to fishing communities through Beach Management Units (BMU) Statute 2003, and
which legislation has institutionalized BMUs as community institutions with a co-management function to
developing, conserving and sustaining the fisheries resources. However, its implementation is now faced with
many challenges and problems at the frontline including; increasing encroachment, overfishing and/or
overexploitation of the resource leading to declining fish stocks, poor landings and environmental degradation
with resultant poverty, food and nutritional insecurity, job insecurity, environmental disruption and resource
conflicts now evident on all major Uganda lakes; Victoria, Albert and Kyoga. Implementation of the policy at
local level was decentralized to Local Governments and further to fishing communities through Beach
Management Units (BMU) Statute 2003, and which legislation has institutionalized BMUs as community
institutions with a co-management function to developing, conserving and sustaining the fisheries resources.
However, its implementation is now faced with many challenges and problems at the frontline including;
increasing encroachment, overfishing and/or overexploitation of the resource leading to declining fish stocks,
poor landings and environmental degradation with resultant poverty, food and nutritional insecurity, job
insecurity, environmental disruption and resource conflicts now evident on all major Uganda lakes; Victoria,
Albert and Kyoga.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Abstract cont’d
Poor management measures and approaches employed coupled with the existence of weak and
poor governance structures and absence of mechanisms to resolve conflicts in fishing and
fisheries management are major contributing factors to the problem. This paper therefore
discusses causes and challenges in achieving responsible and sustainable fisheries and makes
proposals for an alternative fisheries governance model and legislative alternatives in promoting
sustainable fisheries under a co-management regime.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
1.0 INTRODUCTION
• Lake Victoria covers an area of 68,000 km2. Other
lakes of substantial size include Lakes Albert and
Kyoga followed by Lakes Edward and George.
• Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest fresh water fishery
and World’s second largest fresh water lake to
Lake Superior in the USA.
• The lake is split between Uganda (43%), Kenya
(6%) and Tanzania (51%). (See, Figure 1). It has a
mean depth of 40 m, a maximum depth of 84 m
and a shoreline of 3,450 km. The lake is also the
source of the River Nile
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• The fisheries sector in Uganda contributes
immensely towards poverty eradication, in terms
of household incomes, food and nutritional
security, employment opportunities, equitable
development and sustainable resource utilization.
• Its direct contribution to GDP is about 2.5% and
12.6% to the Agricultural GDP. Fisheries
contribute to economic growth at national level
through multiplier/GDP effects, generation of tax
revenues, and generation of foreign exchange.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Fisheries generate livelihoods and employment
(directly over 1,100,000 people and indirectly about
3.0 million people) and income to millions in rural
areas across the country. Much as fishing and related
activities do not generate high economic returns for
the majority fishers, but instead help them to sustain
their livelihoods and prevent them from falling deeper
into deprivation.
• Nutritionally, fish is often presented as one of
important source of protein, especially where other
sources of animal protein are scarce or merely
expensive.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
BACKGROUND
• Between the years 2000 and 2003, the Department of
Fisheries Resources (DFR) under the Ministry of
Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF)
organized a number of national and local level fisheries
stakeholders’ consultative forums/workshops to
discuss the major fisheries management issues
affecting the Uganda fisheries sector.
• The major problems identified then were fisheries
resources depletion and environmental damage and
poverty among fishing communities living around all
Uganda lakes; Victoria, Albert, Kyoga, and Edward and
George.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• To address these issues and problems, DFR, in 2004,
developed the new National Fisheries Policy (NFP). The NFP
2004 is a policy framework aimed at improving the
livelihoods and alleviating poverty in fishing communities
through the sustainable management of Uganda’s lake
resources.
• The implementation of the fisheries policy at local level is
decentralized to Local Governments (LGs) and further to
fishing communities under the Fish (Beach Management)
Rules No. 35, 2003, which legislation has institutionalized
Beach Management Units (BMUs) as community
institutions with a co-management function to developing,
conserving and sustaining the fisheries resources.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
However, over the past ten years, the
implementation of the policy under the comanagement system, with established BMUs
governance structures at local level has failed
both in achieving a fair system for fishing
communities and in promoting responsible and
sustainable fisheries for Uganda and instead has
created new problems by promoting more
unsustainable practices in the fishing sector
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Current situation is characterized by
threatened fisheries resources due to
increasing encroachment, overfishing or
overexploitation, declining fish stocks, poor
daily fish catches/landings and environmental
damage leading to alarming levels of extreme
poverty, food and nutritional insecurity, and
joblessness in fishing communities as well as
ecological and environmental damage to the
resource.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS AND
CHALLENGES
• The NFP, introduced in 2004, recognizes that extremely powerful
interests now dominate the fishing industry. Analysis of the
problems facing the fishing sector, how the NFP addresses these
problems and its relationship with the global fisheries and trade
policies reveals immerse disparities between the design of the
existing NFP regimes and the need to develop appropriate and
effective policies that promote and sustain food security, livelihoods
and aquatic eco-system in Uganda’s lakes.
• The crisis facing the NFP implementation process indicate that the
policy has now failed to achieve a fair system for fishing
communities and ecological balance for the fish populations and
other aquatic resources .
Current policy problems and management challenges include;
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
An Open Access Policy and Free Entry into the Lake
and Fishery
•
Access to the fisheries resources on Ugandan lakes has remained solely under an
open access policy as it continues to allow free entry into the lakes, where
everyone has a right to exploit the resource.
•
Increasingly, there has been a tendency for fishermen to catch as much fish, with
or without regulation, and as fast as they can. In the absence of effective control
or effort limiting measures, as is the case for Uganda’s fishing industry, this open
access system has inevitably led to increased overcapacity and thus
overexploitation of the resources characterized by; intensification of fishing effort
through increased inputs and improved fish harvesting/production methods,
and/or fisheries resource and environmental degradation due to overfishing.
•
For instance, on Lake Victoria alone, fishing effort increased tremendously from
129,300 fishers in 2000 to 199,200 in 2008, and the number of fishing boats from
42,500 to 69,400 units during the same period. Numbers of boats, engines, fishers,
and fishing gear numbers have increased between 200-300% during the past
decade. This increasing trend in fishing effort is the same for the remaining
Ugandan lakes of Albert and Kyoga
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Greater Emphasis on Classical Fisheries Management
Approaches
• The management of the fisheries resources in Uganda and
enforcement of measures thereof is mainly done through
employing classical fisheries management approaches.
• These include controlling fishing effort of fishing boats by
limiting entry into the fishery through licensing the boats
for fishing and prescribing the gear type and mesh to be
used in order to limit the exploitation of juvenile or
immature fishes and limitation on the slot sizes of fish, and
to some extent, limitation on the boat size.
• However, limitation by licensing, as is the case for Uganda’s
fishing industry, has not been adequately enforced and
consequently, this has for long time resulted in
overcapitalization of the fishing industry leading to the
depletion of fish stocks.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Classical fisheries MGT approaches
Cont’d
• In addition, the fisheries law (Fish Act) does not provide for
limitations on the amount of fish in terms of quantity an individual
fisherman is expected to catch within a specified period of time or
by a more even spread of fish landings throughout the year. This is
one of the major omissions in the Fish Act and related fishing rules.
• Although, the fisheries law does provide for the issuing of permits
and licensing of boats to grantee or limit access to the resource, in
practice however this system of control is very often flawed. For
instance, many people still fish with or without licenses making it a
de-incentive for those pay license fees to government. This has
further created a problem of increasing number of new entrants
into the lakes.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Delegation of Management Responsibilities to Illegitimate Interest
Groups (BMUs)
• Although, the concept of fisheries co-management under the
BMU governance structures has well penetrated into local
fishing communities in Uganda, however, it has of recent been
observed that there were a number of strategic errors made
during both the design of the supportive legal framework and
the institutional development process for BMU structures.
• These errors have consequently led to such BMUs becoming
weak and ineffective co-management groups in addition to
being vehicles for change in fishing communities. These
among others include
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• First, legally, the existing BMUs were poorly defined comanagement structures or groups, under the existing
statute, as having a legitimate interest in the conservation
and management of the fisheries resources.
• For instance, the heterogeneous nature of BMU committee
representation with membership drawn from multiresource users working in different sectors (e.g. fishing, fish
processing, fish marketing, food vending, boat building,
fishing gear selling, fishery operators- those in transport,
land ownership, boat cargo/luggage carriage, etc.) makes it
difficult for them to reach consensus and undertake
collective management decisions and/or action due to
competing, or even conflicting interests
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Second, the majority of BMU committee members
including their chairpersons and the majority of other
committee membership have neither stake nor interests in
fishing and in fisheries management and as such their
management decision making is arbitrary, conflicting and
corrupt.
• Third, existing BMUs because they are government
sponsored structures, do not normally operate as
independent community organizations but as governmentsponsored local level management bodies. The implications
are that their management decisions are very often
politically influenced and thus they rely more on central
commands than what the community they represent would
wish them to do on their behalf. They are not allowed to
make their own rules that govern their operations.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Fourth, BMUs are not membership-based management groups of interested
parties and as such they lack the legitimacy and therefore trust from among fishing
community they purport to represent and serve. They lack constitutions that
govern them internally and as such they act contrary to what they are expected to
do. Besides, they never generate their own resources internally to sufficiently
support their day-to-day operations and for the sustainability of their groups. They
rely more on government funding- external support which very often is not
forthcoming.
• Fifth, BMU committee members are not transparent and accountable leaders to
their constituencies. Since they do not represent constituencies, committee
members have instead continued to work for a while as shells and such members
are increasingly acting in their individual capacities rather than as representatives
of their interest groups. This has impacted on the effectiveness of the BMUs who
unfortunately have begun to represent the interests of a very tiny minority in the
fishing community. Consequently, they are only answerable to higher levels of
government but not to the community they purport to represent and serve. Apart
from the BMU Guidelines which have been provided by government, they
obviously lack Sets of Rules for their internal regulation and Codes of Conduct
meant for members’ internal control and disciplining.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Finally, BMU leadership is brought to office through the campaigning and
voting process where voters are kind of rewarded for their votes. Although,
this process may seem to be democratic in nature however, in practice there
has been a tendency by community members to choose known individuals
who very often are over-committed and thus unable to devote the time
required to lead the group.
Delegation of Management Responsibilities to Generalists
• The enforcement of fisheries measures at the frontline has been left to
generalists who are seemingly laymen in handling major fisheries technical
aspects. The fisheries task force teams are hand-picked, recruited and
deployed by the Minister of in-charge of Fisheries on all lakes including lakes
Victoria, Albert, Kyoga, and Edward and George.
• The reason for this option by the Minister has mainly been as a result of
failure by the designated Fisheries officers and BMUs to cub illegalities and
other fisheries management issues.
•
Since, they are non-technical in the enforcement of the fisheries measures
they have instead created more conflicts between themselves and the BMUs
and fishing community. In addition, they are heavily involved in money
extortions from illegal operators, misuse of power and authority conferred to
them by the Minister and in harassing the fishers, etc.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Among the unusual scenarios, is the canning
and beating of fisheries law breakers or illegal
fishing operators instead of arresting and
prosecuting them in Courts of Law which is
now on the increase.
• There are also extreme cases of transboundary conflicts between different
authorities operating on Lake Albert as a
shared water body between DRC and Uganda.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
Lack of Institutional Mechanisms to address Conflicts
in Fishing
• There are a number of impeding user conflicts including
inter-gear and trans boundary conflicts in fisheries in the
absence of a conflict management and resolution
mechanisms to ensure that social stability and
development is achieved in the fisheries sector.
• In principle, there was a general failure in explicitly
addressing conflicts in the planning and policy processes.
• The implications are that there is at the moment total
confusion in the implementation of fisheries measures ,
with management actions often being guided more by the
priority of the day and political influence, rather than by an
overall framework recognizing possible trade-offs in
advance.
• The institutionalization and recognition of conflict
resolution mechanisms within the existing policy
framework is indeed crucial.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
CONCLUSION
• For fisheries in Uganda to be managed at local level, an effective
policy and legal instrument is required to define clearly the
respective roles and functions of different players and/or actors,
e.g. management authority, local government units, management
groups and others like CSOs-NGOs/CBOs, the security operatives,
marine police, etc. with a major stake on the lake. Within the
management groups, it is essential to ensure that the conditions for
membership are explicit and that they reflect, as appropriate, the
social and economic cohesion of the groups.
• The implementation and enforcement of fisheries management
measures and/or plans, involving management by catch quotas or
closed seasons or fishing holidays, would certainly fail if either the
management authority and/or the management groups do not
have the requisite human and financial resources to monitor
catches, or the use of closed areas.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• The rapid changes in the fisheries in Uganda over the last 15 or so years
certainly suggest that as we “fish down the food chain”, there are now
fewer links in the chain that would provide direct human food. The social
implications of this type of decline are enormous. If the “safety net”
function of the fisheries is removed, where will the millions of people
move to and what will they do? They will probably be forced to move to
urban areas, aggravating the already large problems in the countries’ cities
and towns. As a poverty reduction strategy, fisheries co-management has
enormous potential and there is a clear need for greater advocacy of the
approach.
•
One of the perceptions that needs to be overcome is that comanagement is a challenge to government authority and that this ought
to be resisted. Experience to date, however, has shown that when
government devolve authority they benefit by achieving better results in
terms of ecological, social, and economic outcomes. Under comanagement, fisher communities will get the benefits of participating in
management decisions that affect their welfare and government will
benefit by being more effective and efficient, and potentially damaging
conflicts, poverty and resource degradation can be avoided, or at least
mitigated.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• The benefits themselves are in terms of lessened
conflicts, increased social cohesion, more independent
communities, not to mention the large economic and
social gains that are possible to recoup from healthy
fisheries resources, as well as increased nutrition and
health.
• The cost of not investing in co-management is
potentially enormous, and with the current trends in
Ugandan fisheries, both the economic and social
impact of collapsed fisheries could cost the
government many times more than strategic
intervention taken now.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
• Uganda as a country urgently needs to develop and adopt a more
sound, participatory and equitable fisheries policy with policy
objectives designed to drive its fisheries sector to achieve a balance
between Social, Economic, Cultural and Ecological factors within the
lakes ecosystem as well as contributing to the long-term sustainability
of its fisheries and also empowerment of and protecting the human
rights of its fishing populations. Limited access is now widely
considered to be essential for efficient and responsible fisheries. There
is need therefore for a policy shift for Uganda’s fishing industry i.e.
(a) Moving away from the current system of open access to one of
limited access. The introduction of a quota system by government for
fishermen would lead to a regulated fishing industry. For instance; the
fishermen themselves would be responsible for the conversion of Total
Allowable Catches (TACs) into national quotas which will have already
been set by Government. TACs shall be based on recommendations from
fisheries biologists e.g. National Fisheries Resources Research Institute
(NaFFRI) who would have to take into account a safe biological limit, which
is a minimum level above which fish stocks have a better than even chance
of producing enough recruits to maintain their size.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
(b) Moving away from the current instructive (government as a sole
actor) type of fisheries co-management system to a cooperative type
of co-management arrangement.
This arrangement would promote collective action since it has a
developmental focus where both government and fishers act as equal
partners in fisheries management. Management by some form of
partnership is likely to be an effective and sustainable policy option.
This partnership arrangement would be able to yield the desired longterm returns with the potential for;
•
•
•
greater reliability and accuracy of data and information;
more suitable and effective regulation;
enhanced acceptability of and compliance with management
measures;
•
reduced enforcement costs;
•
reduced conflicts; and
•
strengthened commitment to and participation by concerned
interested parties.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
c) Give autonomy to well established local management
groups. These groups of interested parties should be allowed
to function as independent community-based and/or peoples’
organizations, as well as legal entities (fully registered and
well organized fish producers’ associations/cooperatives). One
way in which such groups could become legitimate
representatives is for them to become membership-based
organizations or groups to which fishers formally affiliate and
perhaps contribute a small fee. A membership fee would give
them some measure of independence and would also help
popularize these management groups. Such groups would also
need to consider how they would generate resources to
sustain themselves and their operations
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• Once fishers consciously affiliate to management groups, then they would
be inclined to actively participate in management and other development
activities and to exert pressure on the group leadership to satisfy their
needs and be accountable and transparent as well.
• In addition, management groups would have ability to develop Sets of rules
and Codes of Conduct for self-regulation and observing fisheries measures
and regulations through making their own rules on, for instance;
•
•
•
•
•
minimum mesh sizes;
minimum fish landing sizes;
the closure of periods during which certain species must not be fished;
the closure of certain areas for certain fishing activities such bays; and
restrictions as to fishing gears and slot sizes of fish.
(d) Giving legal recognition to only those fishers who directly or personally and
physically engage in fish harvesting and processing. This approach is expected
to exclude fisheries operators who own and provide the means including land,
labour, capital, fishing gears and boats, but do not personally engage in fisheries
activities.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
• The groups of interested parties should preferably have conditions for
membership satisfying standards in fisheries management (e.g.
production, market, resource conservation, etc.)
• Fisheries co-management groups need to be independent and
membership-based organizations, such as fishers’ cooperatives,
associations, etc. with the ability to generate sufficient resources both
internally and externally to support and sustain their operations and for
supporting general community development and services provision.
(e) Granting of fishing privileges/rights by government to the fishermen’s
groups. The responsibility and therefore the right of access to and
management of the fisheries resource on behalf of government should be
assigned only to fishermen groups who would then take part both in fishing
and fisheries management so as to advance the process of acquiring userbased ownership and rights over the resource
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
OTHER BENEFITS OF SUGGESTED
POLICY
• The later would give fishermen through their well organized and legally
registered entities; (e.g. fishers’ organizations, associations or
cooperatives established at every beach), greater responsibilities in fish
stock management. The groups would therefore aim to achieve;
• common management of their members’ individual quotas;
• control over total fish catches;
• maximum profit for members by a more even spread of fish landings
throughout the year;
• collection and/or generation of sufficient revenues from group members’
own fish sales on a daily basis so as to support and sustain their groups’
activities and operations and further making contributions to local and
central government’s funding mechanisms for fisheries and management
and development related programmes; and control over the resources and
fostering self-reliance of their groups.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
REFERENCES:
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The Republic of Uganda. The National Fisheries Policy 2004:
MAAIF. The provisional Fisheries Sector Strategic Plan (FSSP): August, 2004
MAAIF. Guidelines for Beach Management Units: 2003
UFFCA. Annual Reports: 2004, 2005. (Un Published)
UFFCA. Report on Assessing the Performance of the National Fisheries Policy.
Implementing the new National Fisheries Policy through Field lessons and
Experiences: 2006 (Un Published)
UFFCA. Towards a Strategy for Empowering Beach Management Units (BMUs) as
Agents of Change among Fishing Communities in Uganda. Are BMUs still Vehicles
for Community Organizing? UFFCA Policy Briefing Paper No. 1: 2006. (Un
Published)
FAO. Increasing the Contribution of Small-scale Fisheries to Poverty Alleviation
and Food Security. Fisheries Technical Paper: 481
©2015 S. Kamuturaki
References cont’d
FAO/APFIC. Mainstreaming Fisheries Co-management in the AsiaPacific Countries. RAP Publication: 2005/24
FAO. Fisheries Management. FAO Technical Guidelines for
Responsible Fisheries: 4
FAO. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture: 2006
Celeste Ferreira Lourenco. Social Security for Fishworkers in Brazil.
International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF). A case Study
of Par’a. Publication: 2006
The Philippines Republic. The Fisheries Code: 1999
Leo van Mulekom. An institutional development process in
community-based coastal resource management. Building the
capacity and opportunity for community-based co-management in a
small-scale fisheries community in the Philippines; 1999.
Dr. Masamichi Hotta. Strategic Plan for Fishing Community
Development and Management in the Phillipines: Pages 208-225.
©2015 S. Kamuturaki