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Policy Insights and Implications

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One of the main successes of MultiTip is our ability to provide insights on fisheries management at Lake Victoria. MultiTip has published 3 Policy Briefs on the Nile Perch fishery at Lake Victoria and 1 Policy Brief on the Dagaa fishery. 

 

                                                

MultiTip Policy Briefs on the Nile Perch Fishery at Lake Victoria 

Boats Edited Small

 

MultiTip Policy Brief #1

Benefits of Protecting Juvenile Nile Perch

MultiTip Policy Brief #2

Understanding and addressing fishers' risk behaviour

MultiTip Policy Brief #3

Fishers believe their activities have a strong impact on the Nile perch stock fluctuations

 

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Benefits of protecting juvenile Nile Perch

MultiTip Policy Brief #1​​​​​​

Authors: Johannes Kammerer, Santiago Gómez-Cardona, Robert Kayanda, Chrisphine Nyamweya, Hillary Mrosso, Timo Goeschl

 

Gear regulation of the Nile perch fishery has been a subject of discussion among Lake Victoria managers for a long time: How best to regulate gear to ensure high fishery yields for food security and income while maintaining healthy and reproductive fish stocks? A new study building on a size-structured, ecology-based and empirically validated model of the fishery found major benefits of protecting young Nile perch. Protecting young fish would lead not only to higher yields, but also to a larger spawning stock, and thus this measure fulfills the necessity to ensure a high number of large, reproductive fish and can be endorsed by conservationists, managers and stakeholders.

 

 

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Understanding and addressing fishers' risk behaviour

MultiTip Policy Brief #2​​​

Authors: Philipp Händel, Dorothy Birungi Namuyiga, Astrid Dannenberg, Pia Pico

 

The discussions on gear regulations (see MultiTip Policy Brief #1) show that effective regulation can lead to a sustainable fishing sector. However, fishers are still willing to take the risk of deviating from these regulations and fish illegally, despite the governance instruments installed (e.g. boat licensing, fish size regulations, and military enforcement). Non-compliance comes with a financial risk, as the chance of increased income through illegal activities comes with the risk of very low income through punishment (e.g. fines, arrest, gear destruction). Therefore, for effective management, it is important to understand when fishers are more willing to take a financial risk and when they are less willing to take such a risk. 


By conducting behavioral studies with fishers, we are able to understand mechanisms that determine fishers' financially risky behavior. We show that after being informed about the behavior of other fishers, fishers do not imitate low-risk behavior, while they do imitate high-risk behavior. However, we also show that fishers are less likely to take high risks when informed about how high-risk behavior negatively affects other fishers. We therefore suggest that information about how high-risk behavior, such as non-compliance with net regulations, threatens the livelihoods of other fishers may help to encourage fishers to engage in more compliant, low-risk behavior.

 

 

 

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Fishers believe their activities have a strong impact on the Nile perch stock fluctuations

MultiTip Policy Brief #3

Authors: Karlijn van den Broek, Joseph Luomba, Bwambale Mbilingi, HoraceOnyango & Fonda Jane Awuor

 

Management of the Lake Victoria Nile perch (NP) fishery is challenging and there is an ongoing
debate on the effectiveness of enforcement and bottom-up approaches like BMUs. Our research
findings show that fishers believe their fishing practices have a strong impact on the Nile perch stock.
This suggests that enhanced engagements of the fishers in management may have potential because it
aligns with fishers’ perceptions. These findings stem from collaborative research with regional
fisheries institutions where we investigated fisheries stakeholders’ perceptions of the drivers of the
NP stock decline.
 

 

 

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MultiTip Policy Brief on the Dagaa Fishery at Lake Victoria

Dagaa Nets

Subsidies improve compliance in the Tanzanian dagaa fishery at Lake Victoria

MultiTip Policy Brief #4​​​

Authors: Florian Diekert, Tillmann Eymess, Timo Goeschl, Santiago Gomez-Cardona, Joseph Luomba

 

Buy-back programs for illegal gear are often discussed as a tool to solve compliance issues in
fisheries. But buy-back programs create problems of their own. When fishers can sell their illegal nets
to the government for a profit, the program simply increases illegal net production. A new study on
the Tanzanian dagaa fishery at Lake Victoria shows that there is an effective alternative: a subsidy
program for legal nets. Offering a 20% price discount on the price of legal nets makes half of all
dagaa fishing operations in Tanzania comply with mesh-size regulations. This is the result from
research at 20 landing sites using an innovative methodology.
 

 

 

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Updated on: 02.02.2024
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