Journey to Sustainable Fisheries Management in Malawi: The Cases of
Lakes Malombe and Chiuta
By Steve Donda
ABSTRACT
Fisheries resource management in Malawi, has so far gone through three main types of management systems, which can effectively be defined, if not more. In the pre-colonial era, fisheries resource management was under the control of traditional leaders, which fall under the Traditional Fishery Management System. Thereafter, up to this day, most fishery resources in Malawi are entirely controlled by the government, under the Centralised Fishery Management System. Of late, a number of fisheries in Malawi, like those of lakes Malombe, Chiuta and Chilwa have adopted the Fisheries Co-management approach. Fisheries co-management in Malawi was introduced in 1993. Experience so far gained indicate that sustainable fisheries resource co-management necessitates the acceptance and embeddedness of the usergroup representative bodies within the fishing communities. An understanding of the local institutional setup and dynamics is vital to proper planning and implementation of the co-management approach. This paper gives experiences and lessons learnt on co-management in Malawi from lakes Malombe and Chiuta.
KEYWORDS: traditional, management, centralised, co-management, sustainable, usergroup, institution.
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