Exploitation and management of the artisanal fisheries in the Ugandan waters of Lake Victoria

The fisheries resources of Lake Victoria support the livelihoods to the lakeside rural communities and are vital to the economies of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, especially through fish exports. Management decisions to enable long-term sustainable exploitation of these fisheries require appropriate knowledge of the fishing effort and catch statistics, as these are pertinent for evaluating the fish stocks and future prospects of the fishery. Catch assessment programmes in the Ugandan part of the lake, which should provide this type of information, collapsed in the late 1980s. This study evaluated the current status of fishing effort and fish catches and their implications for the management of the fisheries in the Ugandan part of Lake Victoria. Historical trends in fishing effort and fish catches, total fishing effort in 1990 and 2000, and the current status of fish catch-effort, in the Ugandan part of the lake, were examined