Any successful fisheries management intervention needs to begin with a thorough biological-, limnological- and socio-economic baseline. The Fish for Food Security in Zambia Project implements participatory fisheries management of small water bodies in the Eastern Province of Zambia. The project is working with dam management committees (DMCs) selected by their community which oversees a dam fishery. To inform management decisions and develop monitoring systems that ensure that catches are legal, reported and regulated , we did four fishery independent surveys (two wet seasons , two dry season) from November 2020 to date. These included sampling of the fish population with a variety of gears (multi-panel experimental gillnet fleets, large- and small-mesh seine nets, cast nets and traps), as well as descriptions of the physical environment and habitats of the dams.
Ten dams were surveyed (ranging in size from 1.9 hectares to 31.8 hectares ). In total, 20 species were captured from six families, with Cichlidae (11 species) and Cyprinidae (5 species) the most specios . Large cichlids ( Oreochromis species and Coptodon rendalli) and catfish ( Clarias gariepinus ) are the most important species caught in experimental gillnets and large-mesh seine net. Gillnet catches were seasonally variable within each of the dams and were highest in Lumamba Dam in the wet season (3.206 kg.100m-1) and highest in Mukungwa (1.667 kg.100m-1) in the dry season. Large mesh seine net catches were highest at Malipa Dam with a relative biomass of 4.337 kg.haul-1 and 24.137 kg.haul-1 in the wet season and dry season respectively. Five dams (Rukuzye , Lumamba, Tigone , Bikoko and Malipa) exhibited signs of poor juvenile recruitment due to low adult fish densities. No large cichlid species (i.e., no juveniles or adult fish) were sampled at Nthambo since the survey began in 2020, indicating that they no longer occur in the dam.
Management recommendations were made to help DMCs inform their management planning for each dam, and to complement ongoing catch-assessment surveys being conducted at each dam. In the presentation we present some of the results in detail, the fishery-independent survey approach as a management planning tool and highlight what indicators should be considered for viable fisheries management in small impoundments.
Keywords:
*Sustainable fisheries management*Dam management committee*Community- based natural resource management*Fisheries independent surveys*Eastern province* Zambia *