Seventeen (17) fisheries experts from the Uganda’s districts of Kampala, Mukono, Masaka. Wakiso  and Jinja have been retooled on the bio-economics of fisheries management . The two days training (15^th-16^th March 2023) held at Makerere University was facilitated by Africa’s and Ghanaian renowned Professor of environmental economics, Wisdom Akpalu.

Prof. Wisdom was invited by the EfD-Mak centre to come and provide training on bio-economics of fisheries management to fisheries officers in Uganda.  Prof. Wisdom is the centre Director of EfD Ghana but also the member of the coordination committee of the entire EfD Network and member of the capacity development committee of the EfD Network but also, the leader of the Blue resources for development- a collaborative program within the EfD Network where fisheries fall.

Government fisheries officials were retooled on different aspects including  the cost, revenue and profit in fisheries economics, growth functions in fisheries, property rights and resources extraction, policy instruments to regulate overfishing. Other aspects were dynamic equilibrium and the concept of shadow value, destructive fishing practices, resource use externalities and the performance of capture fisheries in Africa.

The training was officially opened by the Principal College of Business and Management Sciences Assoc. Prof. Eria Hisali who congratulated the centre Director for organizing this training and other initiatives adding that, they are important because they add to our visibility as a a college  and university and it also takes us to the government and other agencies out there.

Prof. Hisali noted that Fisheries and fish related products are among and still remain among the five leading exports from Uganda while  Africa is one of the two continents where the big  proportion of the population still lives directly of the fishing activities and Natural resources in general.

“Our concern then, is the way these activities are being undertaken is not sustainable we risk depleting these resources because of population pressure, and unsustainable practices and once that happens it threatens our existence of our continent but also as countries because if we deplete resources and yet we are living directly of the same, then everyone should be starting to imagine what will happen.

What will happen is untold suffering but also direct conflict for the little resources that would have remained and disintegration of countries and societies” he decried

The Principal challenged all participants to look at the strategic importance of the lessons to be undertaken in the two days

“This intervention that the center is undertaking to share insights on how best we can sustainably use these resources becomes very important for the very  survival of our countries. I want you to look at this training as a very important one because it speaks of the very basis of our survival as a country and continent”, Prof. Hisali stressed.

Prof. Hisali advised participants to form a network which should go deeper into ideas given by Prof. Wisdom, contextualize them and ensure they are fully applicable  to the Ugandan situation and begin influencing sustainable practices and  policy.

“Some civil servants at your level tend to under look themselves. You are extremely powerful and you can influence so many things. So go with that confidence and come up with suggestions that are practical, make sense and that can be implemented.

As a university and specifically the center, Hisali pledged full availability to work closely with the fisheries experts and to convene in case they have ideas to work through the nitty gritties and contribute own insights .Prof. Hisali also pledged that the university will equally be available  in terms of  creating  platforms for the works that fisheries experts do  to engage wth policy makers.

As they integrate lessons and experiences and insights, and as they develop materials for policy advocacy, the principal implored participants to get back to working places and pass on  the message to build capacity in institution to have a critical mass of public servants and members of the community  who have a different perspective on the way of handling natural resources and understanding the implications of  mismanagement of resources.

“History will judge extremely harshly if we don’t take the necessary actions today to ensure that the next generation of the people in our continent live a better and more meaningful life”

The Principal thanked Prof. Wisdom Akpalu for making time to come to Uganda and Makerere University in particular to share the  knowledge,  skills and experiences from Ghana, expressing the need for opening up to share cross country comparisons to learn from one another on the  basis of areas with commonalities.

Knowledge on the biology and economics of fisheries management critical for practitioners.

Prof. Wisdom Akpalu observed that Africa has  very few people who have the expertise in combining the biology and economics of fisheries management which has made fisheries management difficult and unattractive because decision makers usually want to hear about money, stocks have declined, how to improve stocks and  how much can be got if stocks are improved, the social economic implications when stocks are improved and cost involved.

So, by bringing the biology and economics together one is able to paint a much better picture that is more appreciated by policy makers.

“The message is clear. We cannot manage what do not know. We cannot manage if we do not have some level of technical knowledge of how the fisheries operate and it is not sufficient to just have  knowledge of the biology of fish the size, movement  etc”, Wisdom stated.

Wisdom described Fisheries as an interesting area because it has so many dimensions that requires one to understand both the biology that is, how the fish grows, the thresholds in nature that you cannot harvest beyond a certain threshold or else the stock can collapse. And then you have to add the dimension of economics that when these fishes  are harvested, they are harvested for economic and social reasons,  as a source of food and also sold in the market that  brings in the issue of cost, revenue and  how does these influence the way we manage the resource.

“By providing them this knowledge, they now have a better sense of how to bring the knowledge in the biology and economics together to distinguish between concepts such as maximum sustainable yield which is the maximum quantity of fish that we can catch  on a yearly basis and maximum economic yield  which is the quantity to catch to generate the highest economic benefit.

Usually, the maximum economic yield may be lower than the maximum sustainable yield which means to make a lot of money, or to make   the highest possible profit from the fisheries,  you may have to deploy a lesser  level of effort than  you are aiming to catch the maxim you can catch on a yearly basis for  society to consume”. The professor explained.

He further explained that sometimes the biology will recommend catching up to maxim yield but, the economics may recommend to restrict the catch because when you catch all, the profits you make is lower.  If you reduce the catch at a lower level, other things have to come in, the social consideration, whether fishing for profit or other reason and how to incorporate those reasons in the basic model so as to appreciate things beyond economic gains or pure profits from economics.

Prof. Wisdom commended the participants for the active participation and ability to grasp the subject matter.

“I have been quite impressed.  When I was coming, I knew they were going to be faculty graduate students etc. Only to see practitioners, people who were in the field doing fisheries work . I was wondering whether they are a cut for a course like this. But to my surprise, with all the concepts that I had to go through they were very comfortable.

“They showed the clear understanding of the concept and they were looking for more and when I gave exercises they did it clearly and gave me the answers. It has been quiet impressive and it shows that they have potential and the zeal, they have the interest and they will put what they have learnt to practice”. He appreciated.

Prof. Wisdom encourage the university to continue with this type of collaboration adding that the EfD Network  within the continent has a lot expertise and potential that can be harnessed  for the benefit of  individual countries  and the continent.

“With this type of interaction we share knowledge and  sometimes we tend to undervalue this knowledge that we share but I  believe that if we have to change things for  better for the continent, we  have to begin to make use of  our expertise and experiences  in a platform like this.

Today, it is bio-economics of fisheries management and next time it should be something also relevant for the continent This was a very good positive initiative, I applaud the university and encourage them to continue” He said.

Namaganda Ruth, the Fisheries officer from Mukono District Local Government said:

“The training was very productive to me in that being on the frontline of managing the fisheries, it gives you a clear picture of how you can predict and advise fishermen as  the primary beneficiaries of the resource. At the district level, when policies are being developed, we can guide the technical officers, our superiors and politicians on how to effectively manage the resources.

If possible, the centre should organize more  training in other aspects of natural resources because management is so diverse”.

Maganda Moses is the Senior Environmental Officer from Jinja District Local Government. He said:

“The training was very good. Much of what we are missing in government is attaching an economic value to what we do. We do not have those basics of  making those estimates and calculations. But at least now, I have an idea of what I can do in case they need such information or data. The training was on how we can collect data on a particular resource of the fisheries sector.

So it  was a very good training only that the training period of two days was inadequate and probably  and we need further training in that, and even those who did not benefit from this, it would be good to introduce them to such training so that they are equipped with skills of generating  data in the fisheries sector”.

Importance of the Fisheries sector

Fisheries according to Prof. Wisdom plays a key role in our social economic social being world over and on the continent. In Ghana, for example about 60% of the animal protein needed comes from fisheries and this because the other types of animal protein are either unavailable, scarce or expensive. So a lot of people derive that requirement from fish.

The same applies in Uganda, where people would have loved to eat fish but because fish is not readily available. So that fact that we have less than 10%  of animal protein from fish, is not that people do not like fish but because it is outside the reach of the majority of people.

On the other hand, Wisdom asserts that fisheries are resources that if properly managed they can last forever but then these fisheries are over capitalized and over fished  in Ghana and Uganda. So, the fisheries sector is extremely important for job create employing a huge number of the population, giving animal protein requirement,.

“Fisheries products provides foreign exchange because a lot of  money is spent through foreign exchange in Uganda through Nile perch  processing and export .So the sector is critical and beyond just being important even the value alone to the fish that is harvested is about 2.1% of the Ugandan GDP and that is why it was important for the government officials to be retooled”. Prof. Wisdom explained.

Key issues affecting the fisheries sector

Prof. Wisdom noted that the fisheries sector both in Ghana and Uganda are  troubled with so many challenges . One of those is over-capitalization where there are too many vessels, canoes, boats and that has to be reduced. There is also lack of proper management and so much competition for stocks from different sub-sectors that is leading to over exploitation of stock.

There is use of all sorts of destructive methods because there is competition for stock as fisher men tend to think that they can use other illegal means to be able to catch more fish. Some use explosive dynamites, small size nets, small filament nets which are all over the places posing a serious challenge within the industry.

 But most importantly there is lack of knowledge and capacity to be able to appreciate the impact of all problems on the stocks, harvest, profits and gains that generated from these resources.

Key policy interventions Uganda can emulate from Ghana

From the discussions and interactions with the fisheries experts,  Prof. Wisdom noted that Ghana and Uganda it appears  have similar challenges including  over capacity in the fishing activities taking place, low political and  foreign interests in the fisheries sector with foreigners coming in to compete with locals.

In Ghana,  Wisdom said, there are areas dedicated to  small scale fishing and the   aim is to secure livelihoods of poor people living along coastal communities, with specific  marked spaces that are reserved for  local fishermen so that they can have some catch.

Uganda can learn that Ghana has demarcated where and what locals and foreigners can fish.

“We should also priorities local fishermen viz-a-viz foreign vessels and if possible impose enough taxes on the foreign vessels and use those taxes to take care of local fishermen. We realized that we can gain efficiency by allowing foreign vessels to fish species that local people find difficult to catch and make sure we get taxes that can support local fishing industry so that  local fishermen are not denied their basic livelihoods.

Ghana according Prof. Wisdom has clauses and policies where within specific areas fishermen are not supposed to fish to allow the stocks to recover. From the discussion with the fisheries officials, Uganda also did it   once or twice but has not done it for some time. It is time for Uganda to revisit and try to implement this policies because there are clear ecological benefits and improvement in catches of fisher folks.

Although Uganda has marine police like in Ghana, Ghana in addition has other established local institutions. There is what is called, “landing beach enforcement committee” where local  people constitute themselves into enforcement units and they are able to control some of the illegal practices about fisher folks that Uganda can learn from.

Ghana as explained by Prof. Wisdom has a strong collaboration between research, academia and policy makers working at the ministries and then, the stakeholders the fisher folks and civil society organizations. That platform he advised should be encouraged to be created  so that it will not be one sided decision, it  will be a platform where researchers, fisher folks, civil society organizations and the ministries can always come together to discuss issues of common interest.

Ghana has also established the scientific and technical committee of the Fisheries commission compromising stakeholders such as people from academia who identify and investigate issues for discussion and advise the commission to implement issues observed and Uganda can learn from this.

In Ghana’s fishing communities, there is what they call, “the fish queens or mummies”. These are women who take key roles in post-harvest activities and the fish queen is the leader of women engaged in fish processing and trading  and typically, they are the ones who determine the pricing of fish. When the fisher folks come from the sea, they observe the catches of a few vessels like the first three canoes and are able to tell what the supply of the day would be and that guides them to determine the price per measure would be and they announce that price and every fisherman that comes has to sell at that price. So they play that key role of determining the price of fish and all fishermen on that day obey that particular price.

In Ghana, the fisheries industry especially the artisanal vessels are supposed to be Ghanaian. The semi-industrial vessels are also supposed to be owned by Ghanaians and including  industrial trawlers are also supposed to be owned by Ghanaians. But because the Ghanaian  don’t have the capacity to own the trawlers, they go into a hire purchase agreement and the agreement tends to be rooted in corruption. Those who claim to have hired the vessels do it on behalf of foreigners who disguise as experts on how to manage vessels but are the true beneficiaries. At the end of the day they end up catching the fish they are not supposed to and make a lot of money. So there are Vessel Monitoring Systems that are installed on vessels to monitor and track them and to know where exactly they are operating.

Prof. Wisdom says he has been recommending installation of video devices so that the activities can be watched at a distance so that they can be regulated better and avoid exploitation. By installing video devices on boats and vessels that target big species like the Nile perch to monitor them, the benefits cost will be 21 to 1.

Remarks by the Director EfD-Mak centre 

Prof. Edward Bbaale welcomed participants to Makarere University and the EfD Centre. In a special way, Prof. Bbaale thanked the visiting professor for moving all the way  from Ghana to come and facilitate the workshop.

Bbaale also extended appreciation to the university management and the Principal CoBAMS for facilitating and overseeing the center’s operations.

He thanked participants for making time to come to Makerere saying, they were selected because they were instrumental in their duty station assuring them that the training will focus on what they do at their places of work.

Prof. Bbaale assured participants that none of the participants was selected by Makerere but letters were write to their bosses who selected them. He said by the end of the training, they would have changed the way they perceived things and the way they would want to go deeper into bio economics of fisheries management.

He assured participants that the facilitator  is one of the best environmental economists  in Africa.

“We have a person that has invested a lot of time in the work for which he is sharing with us. He has had a lot of experience working with international organizations before he came back to work with a university in Ghana and also to established the EfD centre in Ghana”

He thanked Prof. Wisdom for creating this collaboration saying, the center is developing capacity in different areas and would be glad to visit Ghana and share the experiences.

 “Uganda is an agricultural country and the government officers you see here are very few compared to the need that we have, that means that may be another time we shall invite you for another cohort because here, are people from the ministry of agriculture, environmental police, and colleagues from different local governments from different districts.  It means that to have lasting impact we must require that we have several rounds of this nature”, Bbaale added.

Prof. Wisdom Akpalu

 Prof. Wisdom is the Centre Director of EfD Ghana but also the member of the coordination committee of the entire EfD Network and member of the capacity development committee of the EfD Network but importantly, the leader of the Blue resources for development- a collaborative program within the EfD Network where fisheries is. He obtained a PhD in economics from the University of Gothenburg Sweden 2006. He is currently Dean, of the School of Research and Graduate Studies at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. Prof Wisdom is also the President of the African Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in Africa. His research focuses on social economics of natural resource management including fisheries management, economics of crime and punishment and economic institutions.