Social economic slants on low fish catch towards sustainability of a collapsing fishery of a tropical Lake Naivasha, Kenya

Globally, food security and unemployment youths have caused overexploitation of Lake Naivasha fishery leading to declining fish landings. Lake Naivasha is a freshwater body and a Ramsar site found in the eastern arm of the Kenyan Rift Valley. The fishery of Lake Naivasha is faced with management challenges. In addition, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing has affected the fish landings and fishery production. Neglecting closed seasons for restocking is not sustainable for Lake Naivasha. Increasing fishing effort (boats) to provide livelihood has led to fishers catching immature fish. Reducing effort using redundancy by proving quitting fee has been proposed as a new technique with better predictions for high sustainable catches. However, the reception of this technique by artisanal fishers have not been applauded although one-year closure in 2000 was a good experiment. This study provides socio-economics insights with which by proving quitting fee can change the current status of Lake Naivasha fishery. Survey data was collected through a combination of questionnaires and participant observations. Lake Naivasha fishery studies showed that the fishing boats have been increasing, while fish catch vary. The catch per unit effort (CPUE) ranged from 16.5 in Kamere to 52.2 in Karagita beaches. Results revealed that the composition of the respondents presented 51.5 % of women and 27.4% of men. The daily mean income was $13.67 ± 0.93 and 13.86 ± 0.75 for men and women respectively. The men respondents pay a mean value of 3.11±0.13, while the mean willingness to pay to quit was $46900 ±12501.2 for men, and $3656.25 ± 9693.6 for women. Results show 79% of men and 74% of women agreed to increase the of boats, while 21% men and 26% women said disagreed. The t- test showed significant differences between male and female respondents for both analyzed parameters. The conflicts of theft, illegal conflicts, conflict between fisher-fisher as well as reduce pressured fish stock are due to increasing unemployment and little sensitization. We recommend the need to implement the closed season policy and to reduce the fishing effort by paying quitting fee approach to allow the fish stocks to rebuilt.

KEYWORDS: Lake Naivasha Fishery; Income; Beach cleaning fee; Quit fishing fee;

Increasing boats; Restocking