Fish stocks in Africa’s Lake Kariba, which include tilapia, bream, catfish, and more, currently suffer from overfishing and increasing pressures from climate change.
To alleviate the pressing issue, Zambia and Zimbabwe need to harmonize their respective policies on managing the lake’s fishery and push for more aquaculture operations to ease the strain currently placed on wild stocks, according to Zimbabwe Director of Fisheries and Aquaculture Resources Production Milton Makumbe.
“We need to introduce aquaculture into our communities to lessen the pressure on our shared water resource,” Makumbe said.
Lake Kariba, which is the world's largest artificial lake and reservoir by volume, straddles the border between the two southern African nations, and as a trans-boundary resource, Makumbe called for Zambia and Zimbabwe to develop similar policy guidelines during a recent workshop held in Siavonga, Zambia, with the support of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Zambia and Zimbabwe have, at least on paper, a protocol concerning economic and technical cooperation that focuses on the management and development of the Lake Kariba fishery, but Makumbe highlighted that there are no concrete steps yet to enforce the protocol’s guidelines...
