1 Study Design
The research goal had to be reworded and broken up into a few confined research questions. The research propositions had to be made specific. The study focused on four problems:
description of the actual fishing effort in the three dams, to supplement the data on the fishing effort required to obtain the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) from the test fishing;
description of access to resources for each target group surrounding the reservoirs;
financial evaluation of different fishing methods employed in the reservoirs;
description of the standard of living of the target groups surrounding the reservoirs.
The primary aim of this descriptive study was to describe a specific group and to put together generalizations based on observational data.
Since there were no primary sources available to answer these questions, the data had to be gathered by the project.
2 Tools of Research
A one-moment sample survey was chosen to generate the necessary data. Two interview schedules were designed. One for interviews with fishermen, and one for interviews with households whose members did not fish in the reservoirs. The interviews with fishermen were aimed at building up as complete a picture as possible of the different fishing methods encountered in the survey areas as well as the situation of the fishermen. It focused on four problems:
description of the actual fishing effort. This should supplement the data on the fishing effort required to obtain the Maximum Sustainable Yield from the test fishing. Although observations of fishermen and registration of their catches is a more accurate technique than asking questions, it was included because at that time no other data collection method catered for this information;
description of access to resources, like, access to fishing grounds, gear and skill to operate the gear;
financial evaluation of different fishing methods;
description of the standard of living of fishermen.
The interviews with the non-fishing community members were carried out to study three problems:
distribution of fish within the community;
other uses of the dam;
description of standard of living of community members compared to fishermen.
The interviews with community members were not carried out in communities around Lutembwe dam. This reservoir is used to provide drinking water for Chipata, the capital of Eastern Province. The implementation of fisheries management or development strategies would not have been allowed. The dam was included for the test fishing exercise because of certain interesting characteristics (deepest and largest reservoir in the Province). The interviews with fishermen complement the data obtained from the test fishing.
3 Sample Frame
In every community surrounding the reservoirs, a meeting was held with the village elders during which the purpose of the survey was explained and information was gathered with regard to the number of fishermen in that village stratified according to the type of gear used. The sample for the first survey was based on this inventory. The selection of the sample also took the gear effectiveness into account. For example, it was assumed that someone fishing with a net will catch more fish than someone who is angling and hence the effect on the fish stock will be more important. Moreover, it was expected that there would be far fewer people fishing with nets than hook and line. Therefore, the recommendation was to interview all net fishermen and a sample of the other fishermen. In total 26 net fishermen were interviewed, 69 trap fishermen, 72 anglers and 42 fishing with other gear.
During the same village meeting, the number of households not fishing in the dam were also recorded. Ideally this information had to be gathered for male-and female-headed households separately, In practice, it was found to be difficult to obtain accurate information on the head of the households. The following sample plan was used: if the number of remaining households (households who do catch fish were excluded) in a village is less than 50, a 25% sample was taken and a 20% sample for those with more than 50 households. In total 97 non-fishermen were interviewed.
4 Training Enumerators
Three Fish Scouts working at the Chipata Fish Farm were used as enumerators. They received a one day training during which;
- the introduction of the questionnaire to the headman as well as respondents was discussed and practised, and
- the purpose of each question was explained and rehearsed in Nyanja and Tumbuka, the two local languages mainly used in the survey area.
5 Data Analysis
Simple describing statistics were used in most of the cases. Frequencies and percentages were tabulated, averages and medians to measure the central tendency of the data and variances and standard deviations to measure dispersion.
Analysis of frequencies in One and Two-Way Classifications were used to test hypotheses like the probability of having cows is equal among all five household categories'. For this analysis the percentage of households owning cows was used. Even if the null hypothesis was confirmed, another analysis has to be carried out, namely whether the average number of cows owned is the same for the 5 populations.
Nonparametric methods9 (Mann-Whitney Rank Sum test and Kruskal-Wallis One-Way Analysis by Ranks) were used to test the difference between the medians of independent samples, like the consumption of fish or the scores on the resource index for the five household categories. Correlation coefficients (Spearman rank correlation) were used to measure the closeness of relationships between two variables, like the consumption of fish during the rainy season and the felt lack of animal protein during that same season.
Tests of statistical significance (Chi-square Goodness of Fit) were used to determine whether sample results support hypotheses like there is no difference in sources of cash between the five household categories!.
Regression analysis was used to determine whether there was a relationship of one or more dependent variable(s) to an independent variable. For example, the strength of the relationship between the number of dependants, number of people of working age, the age of the respondent and the resources a household owned. However, the results can not be interpreted as if the change in the independent variable (resources) is caused by an increase or decrease in the dependent variable(s). The reason is that in socio-economic surveys it is hard to prove that a certain variable is a causal factor (e.g. number of dependants, number of people of working age, age: household head) and it is impossible to exclude all underlying factors which may influence the independent variable as well.
