Coastal East Africa

Local Kiunga fishermen hauling in a net onto their dhow boat with their catch pictured above.
© WWF /Philipp Goeltenboth

Conflicts between coastal communities and the government in Kenya stem from a difference of only 1.5 inches! WWF believes that fishing in the Lamu Seascape is sustainable, leading to higher quantities of fish, larger fish, increased biodiversity and ecosystem productivity, and improved food security and income for the local communities.

Artisanal fishing in the Kiunga Marine National Reserve (KMNR), within the Lamu Archipelago Seascape, is the main economic activity for local communities - 85 percent of the catch is sold to dealers. Fishermen in the reserve use gill nets for drift collection and other types of nets for purse seining. Gill nets trap fish that get caught by their gills when they enter the mesh and are unable to either swim through or back out of the net. Purse seines have a drawstring feature that traps fish that aggregate closer to the surface. Most nets are made of monofilament nylon, which often gets loose and can become ghost nets that drift and catch fish and turtles until they sink from the weight. Seining nets have a one-inch diameter hole which allows them to catch more juvenile fish and bycatch than is sustainable in the long-term. This creates a devastating impact on the region’s marine resources. The Fisheries Department is mandated to enforce the legal mesh size of 2.5 inches to ensure that the right-sized fish are captured and seize illegal nets – leading to conflicts between the fishermen and the government, and to the loss of livelihoods as the fishing communities cannot afford to buy new legal fishing gear.

A trap fisherman recovers his handmade fish trap. These traps are supported by WWF because they are both sustainable and biodegradable.
© WWF-Canon / Jason Rubens

Current work
WWF recently established a sustainable fishing gear exchange program in KMNR. A form of micro-credit, fishermen are given a loan to purchase new biodegradable legal fishing gear and pay back 50 percent of the cost over two years, interest-free. In return, fishermen turn in their unsustainable and illegal fishing gear. Legal nets mean less bycatch and less work for the fishermen because under-size fish are not caught. 45 trawl nets have been replaced with a similar number of 2.5 x 2.5 inch mesh floating fishing nets. This is decreasing both the capture of under-size fish and the use of environmentally destructive equipment, since the new nets are not dragged along the sea floor, destroying fragile habitats like coral reefs and seagrass beds. Fishermen throughout the reserve are beginning to embrace sustainable fishing gear under the current gear exchange program, with 380 fishermen participating and 1,000 additional fishermen willing to join. We must now scale up our work in the gear exchange program and create awareness with the fishermen outside of the reserve, within the Lamu Archipelago Seascape. This will make significant contributions to poverty alleviation for poor communities along Kenya’s coastal areas and have a large scale, positive impact on marine fisheries in Kenya.