Okavango fishermen fret over new regulations
Boniface Keakabetse | Friday April 1, 2016 15:45
In 2014, the government banned fishing at Lake Ngami -- Botswana’s biggest fishery -- a move that sent hundreds of fishermen out of business. Since the closure, the helpless fishermen had watched tonnes of fish rotting and going to waste at the drying lake.
In an interview, the disgruntled fishermen accused the government of harbouring plans to close down the fishing industry under the pretext of conservation. This comes after government instituted new fishing regulations, which will reduce the amount of fish that can be caught in rivers and lakes. The regulations will come into effect on April 1. The fishermen are particularly irked by a section in the new regulations that requires them to use a 25-metre fishing net, instead of a 150-metre one as was the case before.
The fishermen described the new regulations as another attempt by the government to push them out of business. Lake Ngami Fishers Association’s chairman, Loago Mukunki told BusinessWeek that his organisation was contemplating court action against the unfair fishing regulations.
He accused the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism for failing to consult his organisation before taking decisions that affect their fishing businesses. “We are surprised that government say we cannot use 150-metre fishing nets as we are operating at a commercial scale.’’
Mukunki said the 25-metre fishing nets were smaller and fishermen would therefore not be able to operate and sustain viable fishing businesses. The Chairman of Lake Ngami Fish Marketing Cooperative, Bareetsi Bogaisang echoed the same sentiments. He said the new regulations were a hindrance to commercial fishing. He said the cooperative had struck a lucrative fishing export deal with a Zambian food company, Midge Agency. Under the deal, they would export 10 tonnes of fish monthly to Zambia but expressed concern that this may not happen due to the new regulations.
Bogaisang’s cooperative has 42 members and it is mandated to facilitate fish marketing for members locally and internationally. He said the demand for fish was there, but the problem was the Lake Ngami fishing ban and the consequent hostile regulations.
Efforts to contact Ngamiland District wildlife coordinator, Timmy Blackbeard were futile. However in a previous interview, the minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism Tshekedi Khama said the indiscriminate fishing at the lake was one of the problems that resulted in the suspension of fishing to control the situation.
Khama explained that it was discovered that the fishing at the lake was not benefiting the residents of nearby villages. He said fishing was suspended to give the Lake Ngami Trust time to set up facilities and systems to ensure that locals benefited.
Frisco Gabokakangwe of Lake Ngami Trust revealed that they expect government to lift fishing suspension at the lake with effect from April 1. The national fishing season started on March 1, but Lake Ngami is still sealed off.
A research fellow at university of Botswana’s Okavango Research Institute (ORI), Kethatogile Mosepele who is a fisheries biologist, said government’s fishing policies were not informed by science or research but based on perceptions. He said the notion that there was over-fishing in Botswana was baseless as empirical evidence proved that in the contrary there was under-fishing in Botswana. He said the delta system was balanced in that there were fish-breeding habitats within the delta where the terrain naturally made it impossible for fishermen to fish.
“Even if there is over-harvesting at the lake this will not have an impact on the delta system as fish can still migrate from other areas of the delta to the lake.’’
Mosepele challenged ministry to refer to research at ORI to guide its fishing policies.