Integrated Lake Management: A new treatment for ailing Malawi Lakes?
Ann Arbor, MI — Research indicates that fisheries managers and local communities in Malawi appreciate and see promise with integrated-lake and ecosystem-based fisheries management. Because these lakes provide local-level resource users with many economic and environmental services, integrated-lake fisheries management would greatly improve the health, and thus benefit, of these resources.
By including specific consideration of a lake's natural and social environments, integrated-lake management approaches provide a broad account of the impacts that resource users and climate change have on the production of fish, potable water, and water quantity for irrigation and electricity generation.
"Integrated-lake and ecosystem-based fisheries management are emerging as useful approaches for managing large fresh-water lakes of the world," said Daniel Jamu, a Senior Scientist at WorldFish Center, Malawi, and principle investigator on the study. "Both approaches focus on maintaining lake resources in spite of changes in environmental conditions or resource use. These approaches differ from traditional fisheries resource management which emphasizes single species fisheries management."
Past fisheries management narrow focus on conserving fisheries resources without considering the lakes' wider socio-economic and ecological systems has often lead to loss of livelihoods for fishing communities, collapse of the tilapia fishery, changes in species composition, and conflicts between fishers and fisheries managers.
Dr. Jamu's study found that the ultimate success of integrated-lake and ecosystem-based fisheries management approaches will be dependent on how well we understand these aquatic ecosystems and their changing and complicated connections with their watersheds, surrounding human societies, and responsible management agencies.
Original Publication Information
Results of this study, "Challenges to sustainable management of the lakes of Malawi ," are reported by Daniel Jamu, Moses Banda, Friday Njaya and Robert E. Hecky in the latest issue (Volume 37, Suppl. 1, pp. 3-14) of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, published by Elsevier, 2011.
Contacts
For more information about the study, contact contact Daniel Matthew Jamu, Senior Scientist at the WorldFish Center Malawi, National Aquaculture Center, Zomba, Malawi; D.Jamu@cgiar.org; (+256) (0) 1 527344; (+265) (0)888821701.
For information about the Journal of Great Lakes Research, contact Marlene Evans, Editor, National Water Research Institute, Environment Canada, 11 Innovation Boulevard, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 3H5, Canada; jglr@ec.gc.ca; (306) 975-5310.
Since 1967, IAGLR has served as the focal point for compiling and disseminating multidisciplinary knowledge on North America's Laurentian Great Lakes and other large lakes of the world and their watersheds. In part, IAGLR communicates this knowledge through publication of the Journal of Great Lakes Research, available to members in print and electronic form. A searchable archive of the journal is available online and includes the abstracts of articles from the journal's inception in 1975 through the most recent issue. In addition, complete articles are available to members who have signed up for an electronic subscription.