Rebounding Nile perch linked to Lake Victoria conservation effort

From Business Daily, Nairobi, Kenya

By IPS

Coordinated conservation measures to arrest the steep decline of stocks of the Nile perch in Lake Victoria are showing encouraging results - for fish, if not for fishing communities around the lake.

At the end of each day, the boats return to Mwanza, a city on the edge of Lake Victoria, in the northeast of Tanzania.

The catch is not what it once was: each boat’s crew quickly sells the 50 or so fish they have landed.

Paul Johaiven is one of the fishermen. Like many of the others, the 25-year-old got no further than primary school.

For want of alternatives, he turned to the lake to earn a living.

The Nile perch was introduced to the lake in the 1950s while Tanzania was still a British colony.

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