Fishing activity

The FAO subregional office for Southern Africa hosted the seventh technical consultation on development and management of fisheries and aquaculture production in Lake Kariba and Cahora Bassa reservoir in Songo, Tete Province. The consultation was held from the from 7th to the 9th of December in Mozambique. The event was attended by fishery research officers from Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe and included representatives from the associations of artisanal fishers and kapenta operators from the three countries. Participants from Malawi also attended as observers.

During the two day event, the Provincial Director for the Ministry of Sea, Freshwater and Fisheries, Verusca Sumbane Macete mentioned that from an annual plan of 40,036 tonnes of semi-industrial fishery, artisanal and aquaculture fish, 30,000 tonnes had been harvested, corresponding to a performance of 74 per cent of production, "a fact that offers us to say go ahead Tete towards development of fishing activity", he said.

Macete also referred to the last phenomena recorded in the country, which negatively contributed to the decrease in fish production, as is in the case of drought, which, not only reduces fish production in Cahora Bassa, but also reduces the quantity of water in the same source.

In Cahora Bassa, fishery and aquaculture are two crucial activities for livelihoods of the local communities. Fishery is historicaly an important activity for the food security, employment and income security for the locals. On the other hand, aquaculture is at its starting phase and is an alternative to the wild catches that are going down along time reaching levels that fisheries are no longer sustainable.

In order to increase fish production, the director said that the Mozambican government defined aquaculture as a food production priority. "It is in this way that the government decided to internalize the kapenta fishery, opening the space of more than 50 boats, going from 250 to 300, respectively" he said.

According to the FAO Senior Fisheries officer, Aubrey Harris, "the objective of the consultation is to discuss the management measures that these countries have in place in order to ensure that the utilization of these resources is sustainable and contributes to food security and poverty reduction".

As a way to allow rapid increase of aquaculture in the country the Ministry of Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries through the institute of fisheries research is establishing a Scientific Research Centre on Aquaculture (CEPAQ in Gaza Province), which is going to be dedicated on genetic improvement of native species, formulating low cost feeding and certificating imported fingerlings and feeding.

The participants noted some challenges that need to be overcome in order to rapidly increase the aquaculture production, these include; the reduction of aquaculture production costs; improvement of environmental monitoring of aquaculture activities; dissemination of strategies and procedures for practicing aquaculture in the reservoir; and completing the mapping of potential areas for aquaculture activity in the reservoir.

The development of aquaculture in Tete province is one of the priorities of the local Government to improve food production as well as increase income from rural communities. The province has high aquaculture potential in terms of water resources, land and native fish species suitable for culture.

The Cahora Bassa reservoir has potential for aquaculture however currently there are three commercial aquaculture projects running in the reservoir, namely Mozambeze, Chicoa fish farm and Cahora bassa cat fish. The annual average production is around 9.3 tonnes.

Every two years the FAO sub regional office in Harare organises a technical consultation on the management and development of fisheries and aquaculture on Lake Kariba to regularly assist member countries to discuss the management of fisheries and aquaculture in shared waters.