Zimbabwe has more than 11,000 dams spread throughout the country. The dams are built mainly for irrigation, livestock watering and municipal water supply, but they can also be an important food and income resource for local communities around the dams. Limited knowledge exists about the present fish production of the dams, but it could exceed 10,000 tons a year (FAO/Agritex Fisheries Unit 1993). Seventeen per cent of the dams are located in Zimbabwe's communal areas1.
Reservoirs in communal areas are heavily fished or even overfished. One of the reasons for this is the fact that a communal reservoir is an open-access resource. In areas where the resource is under private ownership the fisheries are better managed, or even under-exploited.
The Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management is responsible for fisheries management in communal areas. However, law enforcement by the central government is an expensive exercise, and it is difficult to justify allocation of limited government resources towards management of SWB (small water bodies) fisheries. The size of SWB and their distribution (scattered wide over a large area) is such that effective enforcement of management by central government is unworkable. However, the significant contribution of the small water body fisheries to the well-being of rural people cannot be ignored.
Community-based management of fishery resources could provide a viable management option for resources which have hitherto been unmanaged. It offers a sense of ownership to the community over the resources, albeit as a community property. This sense of ownership brings about the desire/need to protect the resources from destruction.
Ownership of the resources provides opportunities for further interventions by development agents. Fish enhancement through habitat improvement, stocking, cage culture, closed seasons and areas -- all these are possible when the ownership is defined.
Realization of the benefits of more fish, bigger fish, more employment or more income from the reservoir takes time. When the idea of controlled fishing was introduced in Lake Malombe, Malawi (Wilson, 1993), a fisherman remarked: “It is for us fishermen to decide whether we want to be poor for one or two years or to be poor forever”. In essence the fishermen were prepared to sacrifice current income for higher incomes in future. The cost to the fishermen in the short term is that they will not catch much. But they hope for better catches in the future, especially when poaching is controlled.
Community-based management is a term used to describe management of community property by local community institutions for the benefit of the community. This is distinct from private or state-mediated management.
Fisheries management broudly consists of:
Under community-based management, all decisions are made by representatives of the community with the assistance of the relevant technical government departments. Technical assistance could also be provided by NGOs or international organizations. Management decisions are based on information about the state of the stock and the fishery but are made by the community. The low level of technical awareness and ability to assess fisheries and fish stocks means that the community will have to utilize outside assistance to gather and analyze the fisheries information. The combination of community participation and the minimal essential external technical assistance holds promise for long-term sustainability of natural resources management.
Institutionalized community-based management is not common in Zimbabwe. Activities to establish community-based management for fisheries resources are new. However, community-based management of wild life resources is being tried under the CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources) programme in Zimbabwe. This report describes the process of community-based management of fishery resources in Mwenje Dam, as carried out by ALCOM.
