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Fisheries around the world are declining due to growing anthropogenic pressures including climate change and overexploitation. Understanding how small-scale fishers respond to this unprecedented challenge is critical for developing more effective management strategies in vulnerable socio-ecological systems. While considerable research is focused on adaptation to change in marine contexts, greater attention is urgently needed on regionally important but often neglected inland fisheries. This study analyzes the adaptation intentions of littoral fishers on Lake Tanganyika, a biodiversity hotspot and one of the largest inland fisheries in Africa. Data were collected through in-person surveys of 154 littoral fishers across 11 major landing sites in Tanzania. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, we identified and tested 15 individual and site-level factors as potential indicators of adaptation intentions to a hypothetical 50% decline in catch. Our results show that fishers with other (non-fishing) primary livelihoods are more likely to adapt in ways that decrease fishing pressure, increase income, and are supported by family and friends. Homeowners were also more likely to adapt in ways that lessen fishing pressure. Our findings highlight the importance of fostering regional adaptation strategies that increase primary livelihood alternatives and capital outside the fishery, while discouraging investment in adaptations focused on increasing catch amount or fishing income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The African Great Lakes are under threat from global and local environmental challenges including climatic change, water pollution and overfishing. To address those issues, managers need observations based on regularly monitored environmental indicators. However, environmental monitoring of the African Great Lakes is often lacking or not based on harmonised methods. The present manuscript is a case study based on Lake Tanganyika, impacted by climate change and anthropogenic pressure affecting water quality, fisheries and biodiversity changes. The implementation of environmental monitoring has often not been continuous or standardised among bordering countries. This prevents managers from taking data-based decisions and opens a risky field where speculation may overcome a rational approach. Long-term monitoring observations are essential to guide management measures to adapt to climate changes and decrease, whenever possible, unfavourable human impact on the Great Lake environment. A regionally standardised long-term monitoring programme is proposed. The sustainability of such monitoring requires that it remains inexpensive and focuses on a few essential parameters. Its strength would be its uninterrupted implementation. Setting up a long-term integrated monitoring programme is also a goal of the Lake Tanganyika Authorities (LTA) with mandated national authorities and stakeholders. A Lake Tanganyika Regional Integrated Monitoring Programme (LTRIEMP) needs to be widely encouraged and supported to ensure its sustainability. General principles from the Lake Tanganyika case study could be useful to develop a wider harmonised sustainable long-term regional monitoring network of the African Great Lakes in a multi-lakes collaborative approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on five years of research around the shores of Lake Victoria carried out by the lake's Fisheries Research Institutes in collaboration with the Lake Victoria Fisheries Research Project. Based on this experience, the authors identify a series of difficulties, which impedes the effective management of the lake's fisheries. These relate to profound weaknesses in the current state-administered management of the lake along with difficulties transferring regulatory power to fishing communities, and problems establishing an adequate 'co-managerial' framework for the development and implementation of managerial action. The authors propose a management structure based on three levels of administration which have at their core 'beach committees,' and which serve as forums for negotiated managerial outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches to the provision of advice on fishery management are changing from reliance on single species stock assessments to multi-species, multi-gear, and ecosystem approaches. Many of these new approaches may, however, be too expensive to apply to small-scale fisheries in developing countries. The fish stocks of Lake Malawi/Nyassa are currently managed by restrictions on fishing gears, fishing areas, and fishing times. Catch statistics and an annual frame survey of fishing effort provide input data for stock assessment studies that are used to derive these recommendations. This management approach is ineffective with several important fish stocks in decline, reports of local species extinctions, and changes in community structure as a result of the disappearance of larger, more valuable species. Failure to enforce management regulations results partly from an imbalance of economic and human resource allocation between the collection of monitoring data, timely analysis of that data, production of workable recommendations, and enforcement of these recommendations. We recommend redressing the imbalance through a reduction in the scale of catch surveys so that resources can be redirected towards data processing, timely provision of advice, management actions, and enforcement. A number of further modifications are recommended to improve and better match the levels of precision of catch and effort data. The implications of current moves away from "state-led" management to "community-based" management are discussed briefly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]