3. CRITERIA FOR RESERVOIR SELECTION

The selection of the reservoir was based on the characteristics of the reservoir itself and of the communities around the reservoir.

• The reservoir was selected on the basis of its potential for a viable fishery. Viability was judged by the size of the reservoir, the number of people using the water and the nature of use, and finally the market for fish within or near the community.

The community was selected on the basis of the importance its people placed on the reservoir as a source of food and income, their perception of the ownership of the reservoir and their willingness to take responsibility to manage the reservoir. In this report a community is defined as those people surrounding a water body who benefit directly from the water body in terms of fish for food or income or as a source of water for livestock or domestic use.

In co-operation with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (DNPWM) and various District Administrators, ALCOM visited reservoirs in Mashonaland Central (Mwenje, Mufurudzi dams), Mashonaland East (Nyadire, Chivake dams), Manicaland (Mwarazi, Bethel Mpatapata dams) and Masvingo (Taru, Chichewo, Vuranda, Vembe, Muungani, Makonese dams). Four reservoirs were chosen for further investigation using the technique of Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA). The reservoirs were Chichewo, Taru, Mufurudzi and Mwenje dams. An internal document was produced for each RRA carried out (Townsley, 1992a, 1992b, 1992c; Chimbuya, Westerlund and Opsahl, 1992). Mwenje dam was eventually selected for a pilot activity and Mufurudzi for another pilot activity. But this paper focuses on Mwenje dam.

3.1 Chichewo Dam was constructed by the community itself, primarily for livestock and irrigation. The community, which comprised only one village with 68 households, already had a dam committee with strong leadership. It was involved in a number of community activities such as community grazing and gardening. Community-based management of grazing land was already in place and offered opportunities for reservoir management to increase fish production through the addition of organic manure to the reservoir. The reservoir was small (8ha) so that manuring would have immediate impact on increasing the food base for fish. The reservoir had recently been stocked. However, the RRA findings (Townsley, 1992a) indicated that any intervention to increase productivity would substantially increase the competition for the scarce cow manure which was also required for crop agriculture and vegetable gardening for the market.

3.2 Taru Dam was built by government with community labour, primarily for livestock watering (Townsley 1992b). The fishery was good but its future was threatened by the high siltation rate of the reservoir. The community, comprising seven villages each with at least 200 households, was concerned about water availability for their livestock. The threat of siltation of the reservoir due to poor soil conservation was of great concern. The community was eager to address the problem of siltation before the fishery could be considered.

3.3 Mwenje Dam is in Mazowe district under the Mazowe Rural District Council in Mashonaland Central Province, 80 km north of Harare. The principal river feeding the dam is Mwenje. Other rivers that feed the dam are Sawi and Nyakasanga Rivers. The dam when full covers approximately 500 ha and contains 43.02 million cubic metres of water. The catchment area of the dam is approximately 557 square kilometres. The dam spills every year. The draw down can be as high as 80% of the capacity of the dam.

Four separate villages within two wards border the northern side of the dam. These are Mufuka, Munyengeterwa, Nyachuru and Chemadzimbabwe. Each village with approximately 200 households is administered separately by a Village Development Committee.

Mwenje dam was constructed by government to irrigate large commercial farms and small-scale plot holders in the communal areas. The reservoir offers high potential for a viable commercial fishery: a market exists near the reservoir; two co-operatives were fishing the reservoir legally. The community was, however, concerned with the current fisheries management of the reservoir: access to the reservoir was not controlled; there were two local government authorities governing the reservoir; neither of them had effective control on the fishing gear that was being used. This scenario meant that the fishing effort on the reservoir was exceptionally high, resulting in over-fishing. The community was concerned about the declining yields from the reservoir. There was also antagonism between the “legal” fishermen and the illegal ones. The community expressed the desire to manage the reservoir by itself (Townsley 1992c).

The Mwenje Dam was eventually selected for ALCOM's work on community-based management of fisheries because of its fisheries potential and the community's expressed need. Furthermore, the RRAs carried out at Chichewo, Taru and Mwenje revealed that direct interventions toward community-based management (CBM) would be more straightforward at Mwenje than at the other dams.

The rest of this paper will present in detail the process of developing community-based management of fisheries at Mwenje dam from the initial RRA, through the RRA findings, to implementation of management plans.

3.4 Mufurudzi Dam: ALCOM was invited by the District Administrator (DA) of Shamva to assist in the creation of a community-based organization which was to manage the fisheries in Mufurudzi Dam. An RRA was conducted (Chimbuya, Westurlund and Opsahl 1992) in two wards, Chidembo and Nyamaropa, which surround the dam, and recommendations were made on the composition of the community organization. The DA envisages a “company” concept of community organization whereby all community members buy shares which give them a right to “profits” from the fishery. Their “ownership” of the resource also makes all shareholders “policemen” over the resource. The DA has taken the lead in enabling the organization to take off. As of now a constitution has been written and 250 shares out of 1500 have been sold. The viability of this type of community organization remains to be seen.

ALCOM is monitoring the “community company” type of organization at Mufurudzi. This work is described in another ALCOM field document.