TROPICS Vol. 17 (4) Issued October 15, 2008 Unforced control of fishing activities as a result of coexistence with underwater protected areas in Lake Malawi National Park, East Africa 1* 2 3 4 Tetsu SATO , Naoki MAKIMOTO , Davie MWAFULIRWA and Shinji MIZOIRI 1 Nagano University, Faculty of Tourism and Environmental Studies Ueda, Nagano, Japan 2 Aichi Prefecture, Japan 3 Lake Malawi National Park, Republic of Malawi 4 Tokyo Institute of Technology, Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yokohama, Japan *Corresponding author; Tel: 0268-39-0001, E-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT We made a detailed study of fishing inappropriate law enforcement, lack of incentives for activities by artisanal fishermen using gill nets CBM, economic pressures, and other reasons (Hackel, and ecology of their target catfishes in 2000 and 1999, Newman, 2001, but see Nishizaki (2004) for 2001 in Lake Malawi National Park in east Africa, successful examples). where fishing activities seemed to coexist with the Fishes of the Great Lakes of East Africa (Lakes regulations of underwater protected areas (PAs) Malawi, Tanganyika and Victoria) are vital protein and fish stocks seemed to be maintained well. The resources for people in riparian countries. Under overall ratio of the illegal nets in the PAs was 26%. pressure of population growth and poverty, the fish Even though there was no effective law enforcement stocks in these lakes show various degree of over activity by the national park authority, fishermen exploitation (Goudswaard et al. 2002, O’Reilly et al. 2003, tended to avoid setting nets near the boarder of PAs Malawi Sustainable Development Network Programme, in the areas directly visible from the village, and 1998).