Odass Bilame

Artisanal Fisheries, Environment and Poverty Alleviation: the Case of Lake Victoria Artisanal Sardines Fisheries Around the City of Mwanza, Tanzania Odass Bilame

Over the past three decades or so artisanal fisheries of the Nile perch was dominant in the Lake Victoria. However, the insatiable demand of the Nile perch in Europe and America in the early 1990s attracted major investments in the construction of the Nile perch processing plants along the lake. Artisanal fisheries of the Nile perch were halted and in so doing artisanal fishers moved to Sardines artisanal fisheries. This book has gone a long way in showing the performance of Sardines artisanal fishing in the beaches around the city of Mwanza in Tanzania and how the fishing activities are alleviating or not alleviating poverty. Furthermore, this book has shown how Sardines fishing activities are compromising with the environment. The fishing beaches were indeed polluted places. Most of the beaches lacked basic social amenities like toilets and safe water. This led to a widespread of water-born diseases such as typhoid, diarrhoea, and bilharzias. As to whether Sardine artisanal fishing enterprises contribute to poverty alleviations, this book has shown that income generated from sardines fishing activities, if utilised efficiently, could significantly lead to poverty reductio