As used in this report, the term “traditional” refers to fishing communities yet to be incorporated within a commercial fishery based on monetary transactions. Though isolated from the market, such communities were not necessarily isolated from other ethnic groups with which they may have developed elaborate mechanisms for exchanging fish for food and other necessary commodities (Riley and Brokensha, 1984:11–14). Nor were such communities static, since all societies, no matter how isolated, have “histories” which include both continuity and change as ongoing processes.
As used in this report the term “riverine fisheries” refers to the capture for both subsistence and commercial purposes of a wide range of fish species from rivers (including coastal deltaic floodplains) and lakes. Because the majority of traditional fisheries are currently undergoing commercialization, a wide range of techniques is included with the major exception of trawlers (as on Lake Victoria) or large commercial rigs for catching Clupeids (as on Lake Kariba). These and other devices for fishing the deeper waters of natural and artificial lakes are excluded not because of their scale and cost but rather because they are seldom owned by local fishermen. Large motorized fishing vessels operating on rivers are not excluded for similar reasons. Although they tend to be owned by outside entrepreneurs on the Amazon such is not the case on the Niger where they are often used by migratory, professional fishermen or fishermen/traders who are members of tribes that have fished the Niger for decades.
Though many riverine fisheries are small scale in terms of yields and number of fishermen, others are not -- some 80,000 fishermen in the Inland Delta of the Niger catching over 100,000 tons of fish per annum after good floods (Galais, 1967). On the other hand, the operations of specific fishing units tend to be fairly small scale. Where commercialization has occurred, the most prevalent capture equipment consists of gill and seine nets. Gillnet fishermen are in the large majority. Though several fishermen may cooperate in using a single boat, each tends to work alone or with one or two helpers who tend to be kin. Yields per annum per fisherman seldom exceed three tons (with less than one ton being more common). Seine net owners use a larger labor force, often hire nonkin, and capture much larger quantities of fish. Their labor force and operations, however, tend to be considerably smaller than those of coastal seine net operators.
Following Klee (1980:3), management strategies of traditional communities refer to both “inadvertent” and “intentional” practices. The former include a wide range of behavioral patterns, customs and beliefs which indirectly conserve fish populations by restricting access to certain communities, clans, lineages and/or individuals and by prohibiting the consumption of certain species. The latter, including closed seasons and prohibition of certain techniques, are implemented and enforced with the explicit purpose of conserving fisheries resources.
Almost immediately after the commencement of this study it became clear that far less information was available on traditional riverine fisheries than one might have expected granted their importance in providing food and employment for millions of people. Though rather poorly documented in comparison to traditional systems of agriculture, much more information is available on marine fisheries. Furthermore a good proportion of what information is available is highly descriptive, concentrating more on fishing techniques and colorful rituals than on the political economy or management of the fishery. It follows from this that there are far fewer scholars studying riverine fisheries, and some of those that do also deal with traditional estuarine, lagoon and coastal fisheries. Furthermore, riverine fisheries as opposed to lacustrine and manmade lake fisheries, and aquaculture, and to smallscale marine fisheries have also attracted less attention from international development agencies.
Since the late 1970s, for example, none of the major studies, symposia and evaluations dealing with traditional fisheries have made more than a passing reference to riverine fisheries, even though titles might suggest the opposite. Two recent World Bank Staff Working Papers (No. 423 and 490) are a case in point. The first though labeled Rethinking Artisanal Fisheries Development: Western Concepts, Asian Experiences (Emmerson, 1980) deals only with marine fisheries. The second, Sociocultural Aspects of Developing Small-Scale Fisheries: Delivering Services to the Poor (Pollnac, 1981) draws most of its examples from coastal fisheries. The same is true of the author's 1984 chapter, “Social and Cultural Characteristics in Small-scale Fisheries Development” in the World Bank's Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Development Projects (Cernea, 1985). The reason for this bias is no doubt related to the Bank's fisheries investment interests: of 14 completed projects audited by the Bank's Operations Evaluation Division, 12 dealt only with marine fisheries, while the other two -- both in the Philippines -- dealt with marine fisheries and aquaculture. The Bank's interest in riverine ecosystems historically has dealt more with dam construction for hydropower generation and irrigation.
Lest the reader think the above example may not reflect the totality of studies, evaluations and projects, the United States Peace Corp's work with inland fisheries concentrates on aquaculture. Furthermore, recent compendiums by anthropologists (who have done more research on fishing communities than other scholars) also concentrate on marine fisheries. These include Smith's edited volume on Those Who Live from the Sea (1977), Andersen's 1979 edited volume on North Atlantic Maritime Cultures, a 1980 collection of papers on maritime anthropology in the Anthropological Quarterly, Spoehr' edited volume (1980) on Maritime Adaptations: Essays on Contemporary Fishing Communities, Acheson's 1981 “Anthropology of Fishing” in the Annual Review of Anthropology, and McCay's “Development Issues in Fisheries as Agrarian Systems” in Culture and Agriculture (also 1981). We have come across no equivalent volumes dealing with inland fishing communities, the closest recent source being Hames' and Vickers' Adaptive Responses of Native Amazonians (1983) which deals with hunters as well as fisherfolk. Though Lawson, an economist, deals with both marine and inland fisheries, aside from her analysis of the Volta River fishery (1972), most of her recent work (including 1984) concerns coastal and marine fisheries.
Granted the general paucity of analytical material on riverine fisheries it was necessary to “spread the net” more widely than expected in order to obtain sufficient information to reach the conclusions in this report. Though we believe that these conclusions will stand up to scrutiny, nonetheless they should be viewed as tentative until they have been tested against unpublished materials in FAO's archives and against further research in the field.
The current study was a desk review that was carried out by the two authors and a research assistant (Carol Mies) on a parttime basis over a 12-month period starting in March 1983. Six sources of information were utilized. The first was a literature search which was expanded on a highly selective basis to include certain small-scale coastal (marine) fisheries. This was done both for purposes of comparison (the assumption being that small-scale fishing communities share certain basic features wherever they occur), and to supplement the paucity of material on riverine fisheries. A major source consulted was the Human Relations Area Files which includes materials from a large number of anthropological studies which have been broken down into a standardized set of categories for purposes of comparison. In this way information was obtained on 91 societies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia that included some traditional fishing at the time studied.
The second source of information dealt selectively with the more general topic of natural resource management by small-scale communities practicing consumption modes of production. Information on management strategies for farm land, grazing resources, forest products and wildlife was examined and compared to fisheries management data. The third through the fifth information sources were replies to letters sent out to 52 Departments of Fisheries in the tropics, 32 FAO fisheries experts, and 19 other experts including academics. In all, 27 replies were received, some of which contained valuable information. As for the final source of information, that drew on the senior author's experience with riverine and reservoir fisheries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Especially useful was data collected over a 27-year period on the local economy (including fishing) of the Middle Zambezi Valley both before and after the construction of the Kariba Dam (Zambia-Zimbabwe).
