Inland Fisheries

Symposium on the Evaluation of Fishery Resources in the Development and Management of Inland Fisheries

Overview of inland fisheries
17/07/1972

The inland waters of Africa play an increasingly important role in the provision of animal protein in a continent which is traditionally poor in this essential commodity. The expansion of demand, the introduction of new fishing techniques and above all the creation of new bodies of water have posed problems of development and management which must be solved if the maximum potential for production from these waters is to be maintained.

A rational development and management policy presupposes a good knowledge of the resources available. Questions of resource evaluation have long been the concern of FAO, and have been the subject of research by projects centred on certain of the lakes of Africa, both natural and man-made. Studies have also been carried out by some individual countries and by the International Biological Program (IBP). As a result a corpus of expertise has been built up in several of the African nations which has provided the basis for two seminars on stock assessment, one held in Jinja, Uganda, in May 1970, and the other in Bujumbura, Burundi, in June 1971.

The promotion and coordination of surveys and programmes leading to the rational utilization of inland fisheries is one of the primary terms of reference of the FAO Committee for Inland Fisheries of Africa (CIFA) and a Symposium on the Evaluation of Fishery Resources in the Development and Management of Inland Fisheries was held as part of the First Session of CIFA in Fort-Lamy, Chad, from November 29 to 1 December, 1972.