Increasing catches on Lake Edward show fruits of co-operation
For almost half a century, fishing on Lake Edward in southwestern Uganda has been dangerous for Ugandan fishermen because of its proximity to the insecure eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
About 70% of Lake Edward’s 2,325 sq km surface area is inside Congolese territory;so the lake is a shared fisheries resource. That has meant confrontation between Ugandan and Congolese fishermen on the lake makes fishing a perilous job, especially for Ugandans.
However, a recent cross-border project, under the auspices of the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Programme-Coordination Unit (NELSAP-CU) appears to be restoring hope for fishing communities on either side of the lake’s shores as The Independent’s Ronald Musoke found out on a recent visit to Rwenshama fish landing site in the southwestern district of Rukungiri.
At about 11am, with the sun already blazing, hundreds of young men and a few women were hunched around dozens of canoes painted in bright colours. They were busy untangling hundreds of knotty fishing nets to help fishermen prepare for their expeditions when the sun sets.
Many of these boats, about 60 of them now docked on the lakeshores at this small but lively landing site landed with hundreds of tonnes of fish earlier in the morning and trading was still going on.
It is a beehive of activity when boats laden with fish dock here—usually between 7am—10am. The melee of hundreds of fishermen, brokers, fishmongers, cart pushers, bodaboda cyclists and even small trucks is a sight to behold. As soon as a boat lands, the pushing and shoving begins as men and women surround the boats and immediately start haggling with the fishermen over prices.
The fish sold here is mainly Nile tilapia, African Cat fish (Clarias gariepinus), Semutundu (Bagrus docmak) and Marbled Lung fish (Protopterus aethiopicus).
Once an agreement is struck, the fishermen saunter into shacks in the nearby trading centre to rest or drink. The brokers pick the fish and take it to washing bays for cleaning before they sell it to waiting fishmongers who will in turn whisk away the fish and sell it in markets as far as Kampala and Mpondwe on the Uganda-DR Congo border.
“Brokers buy fish from the fishermen on the boats while the fishmongers will wait with their money on the side. That is their arrangement,” Ananias Mutabazi, the Fisheries Officer in charge of Rwenshama landing site told The Independent.
“There are about 2,000 people at this landing site meaning that the people living here are more than the number of boats allowed on this side of the lake,” he said, “Those who don’t have a lot of capital to buy fish and sell it in the market do the middleman’s work.”
Everything seems orderly.
Rwenshama fish landing site is a recently upgraded fish handling facility under the second phase of the multinational Lakes Edward and Albert Integrated Fisheries and Water Resources Management (LEAF II).
The fish handling facility has clean running water pumped from a nearby underground tank. There is also an office for the Fisheries Protection Unit under supervision of the national army—the UPDF. The unit also has two speed patrol boats on the ready. The landing site also has sanitation facilities and it has been fenced to keep the dangerous wild animals away since this landing site is on the edge of the Queen Elizabeth National Park.
Mutabazi, the fisheries officer, says before the upgrade, “It was chaotic.”
“Before the project, this was a stretch of sandy beach. There was a makeshift timber structure but it was not as clean as you see now. Fishing was unregulated and there were hundreds of boats on the lake. The fishermen deployed all sorts of fishing gear to catch as much fish as possible,” he says.
It did not help that on the other side of the lake, in DR Congo, worse was happening, thanks to the eternal militia activity in North Kivu province under which this lake falls. As a result, the conflict between DR Congo and Uganda fishers grew as demand for the dwindling stocks of fish increased.
“When the fishermen brought the fish ashore, the haggling over prices happened on the sandy stretch of beach. The fish would also be sold without being cleaned.”
“For years the landing site did not have sanitation facilities like these washing bays. These days, when we take our clean fish to the market, it commands a good price,” Henry Kyansi, the chairman of the landing site told The Independent in June, this year.
Olive Nakilanda, a fish monger who has worked at this landing site for 15 years told The Independent that before improvements were made at Rwenshama, a big Cat fish, probably weighing 10kg, would have gone for Shs 25,000. She lifts the huge slippery fish out of the bucket. She says today she will sell it at around Shs 35,000.
In addition to improvement in cleaning facilities, Nakilanda attributes the marked increase in prices to the size of the fish being captured. Bigger and mature fish is now captured because the fishermen have been ordered to use a certain gauge of fishing nets in Lake Edward.
We meet Apollo Akiiki, 23; a second year student of Social Work and Social Administration at Great Lakes University in Kanungu District in southwestern Uganda. He is one of the 60 boat owners at this landing site. He says his community has benefitted from the project.
“At first, we could pick the fish from the lake and take it straight to the market with sand all over it. The landing site was full of sand.”
“We also used to fetch water straight from the lake but the landing site now uses cleaner water pumped from underground. They have also constructed fish kilns for us.”
“Before this project came around, fishermen would take home about Shs 60,000 but today the least one gets is about Shs 100,000. This is because the fish is clean when you sell it to the fishmonger, the fish looks clean, and it is big and really looks nice.”
“The dangerous animals, especially elephants and hippos were also a problem. They would come and disturb the people but with the perimeter fence now erected, the face-off with the animals is now rare,” Akiiki told The Independent.
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Improved fish productivity
According to Steven Ogwete, an engineer at the Ministry of Water and Environment who is also the national project coordinator of LEAF II, the project wanted to address major environmental threats to the shared transboundary lake systems on the Uganda-DR Congo border.
“The overall objective is to sustainably increase the lake’s fish productivity by promoting good fish capture and management practice, restoration of the lakes’ catchments and improvement of water quality,” he said.
Ogwete says in 2018, two frame surveys conducted on Lake Albert and Lake Edward found that 32,092.8 tonnes of fish were caught every year on Lake Edward; 29,347.2 tonnes in Congo and 2,745.6 tonnes in Uganda with a combined beach value of about US$ 63,000.
Meanwhile, in Lake Albert, up to 376,617 tonnes were caught in Ugandan waters and 41,142 tonnes in Congolese waters with a combined beach value of about US$ 279,000. The survey concluded that more money could be earned if deliberate improvements on landing sites were made.
NELSAP-CU, one of two investment programmes of the Nile Basin Initiative, decided to build and equip landing sites with integrated facilities; including clean water, washing bays, toilets and even cold chains for fish storage at a cost of about Shs 28bn (US$ 8 million).
The survey found over 200 landing sites (107 in Uganda and 94 in DR Congo) were registered on Lake Albert while Lake Edward had 28 landing sites (23 in DR Congo and five in Uganda).
Over the last four years, five fish landing sites in Uganda have been constructed complete with 61 modern fish drying facilities under construction while 19 modern fish smoking kilns are under construction.
Besides Rwenshama, other landing sites which have benefitted from the project include; Mbegu in Hoima District, Mahyoro in Kamwenge District and Dei landing site in Pakwach District, in northwestern Uganda.
The project started with only 13 districts in Uganda but is currently in 30 districts within the Lakes Albert, Edward and George Basin including; Buliisa, Bundibugyo, Bunyangabu, Bushenyi, Hoima, Kibale, Kabale, Kabarole, Kagadi, Kakumiro, Kamwenge, Kanungu, Kasese, Kibaale, Kikuube, Kisoro, Kitagwenda, Kyegegwa, Kyenjojo, Masindi, Mitooma, Mubende, Nebbi, Ntoroko, Ntungamo, Pakwach, Rubanda, Rubirizi, Rukiga, Rukungiri and Sheema. In the DR Congo, the project is North Kivu Province (L. Edward) and Ituri Province (L. Albert).
Ogwete told a group of journalists from Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda in Fort Portal that before the improvements at Rwenshama were made only 288 tonnes of fish were traded in 2019 but following the commissioning of the landing site, this shot up to 360 tonnes— a 25% increase attributed to the improved facility. Mutabazi also says he started seeing improvements at the landing site in 2019.
Geoffrey Kayongo, the project sociologist told The Independent that before the construction of this landing site, there was a lot of illegal fishing just like all other landing sites in Uganda.
“So we brought on board the national army’s Fish Protection Unit as partners in the project.”
Kayongo said the army has been helping with phasing out the illegal fishermen.
“Every boat at this landing site, for instance, is now registered and marked,” Kayongo told The Independent, “Each boat has the owner’s name, telephone number, the first two letters of the name of the landing site and the first three letters of the name of the district the boats operate from.”
The next phase, according to Stephen Opio, the Environmental Officer for the project, is demarcating the fish breeding sites. He said they have identified the breeding sites and sensitized the community about their importance.
“We have tried to change their mindset by making them understand that protecting the fish breeding sites is the most important thing they can do to their fish business; without the breeding grounds, they are out of business.”
On Lake Edward, there are up to 37 breeding areas spread across an area of up to 11,300 hectares with 18 being in DR Congo spread over an area of 8,690ha while 19 are in Uganda (2,610 ha). Meanwhile, on Lake Albert, there are 29 fish breeding areas (11,515 ha). Ten are in DR Congo (5,725ha) while 19 are in Uganda (5,790ha).
Mutabazi, the fisheries officer, says a committee of fishermen, fish brokers and fish traders have agreed on a sum of money to be paid every day towards management of the Rwenshama landing site beyond the project’s end which is scheduled for mid-next year.
“Our main objective was to improve fish handling at this landing site. So we also wanted to fix the software aspects of the people by teaching them behavioural change; especially sanitation, alternative livelihoods and fight against gender based violence,” adds Kayongo.
Working with DR Congo
But challenges remain, including insecurity in the Congolese part of Lake Edward.
A bilateral fisheries agreement between Uganda and DR Congo was signed on October 20, 2018 and is now operational. There are now bilateral monitoring and surveillance of activities of the lakes and senior government officials say there are now improved and harmonized standard operating procedures for joint lake patrols.
Dr. Joyce Nyeko, the Director of fisheries resources at the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries says the joint operations have for instance caused the arrest and exchange of 237 illegal fishers from the two lakes.
About 900 monofilaments, 15,465 illegal hooks, 1,165 gill nets and 237 beach seines have been destroyed. Also destroyed were 1,697 silver fish undersize gears, four tonnes of immature fish and over 1,356 boats. Close to 80 boat engines were also confiscated.
A Ugandan fisherman told The Independent that although they are now relatively fewer incidents, theft of fishing gear and kidnappings are still common on the lake.
“Be it night or day, the Congolese fishermen still cross into the Ugandan waters to cause mayhem,” he told The Independent.
Ogwete also says the basin is still grappling with overfishing, dwindling fish catch, use of inappropriate gear and vessels, and non-aligned fisheries, legal and regulatory management frameworks in DR Congo and Uganda.
In a separate interview with the Africa Climate Conversations podcast, Joseph Matungulu, the coordinator for the project in DR Congo says the Congolese still come at night and lay their nets in Ugandan waters.
“Lake Edward is a small lake but it’s heavily populated. On the DR Congo side, close to 100,000 people live nearby the shores of the lake. All these people put pressure on the lake’s fisheries.”
“Some fishing zones are under the militia. So law enforcement is weak. When you compare the two challenges, it explains why the Congolese fishermen end up into the Ugandan waters.”
“But the project has been trying to address these challenges. Joint routine patrols have been increased. We plan together, patrol together and evaluate the outcomes together. We are now planning a second joint exercise this July,” Matungulu said.
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