We do not believe the initiation of the first pilot projects should await the completion of research and training efforts. Granted the extreme pressure imposed on many fisheries (including both fishing folk and fish stocks) and the increasing importance attached to the concepts of limited access linked with local participation, we suggest that a small number of pilot projects be initiated now within certain existing projects. Pilot projects would attempt to implement new management strategies based on limited access, community participation and other appropriate management approaches. They would, of course, include research (to identify appropriate approaches under local conditions) and training (of officials and fishing folk) components.
We are not sufficiently familiar with on-going or planned host country/FAO projects to make specific recommendations about pilot projects. On the other hand, the Sudd Fisheries Project in the Southern Sudan would appear to be the type of project in which a pilot management component might be initiated. Attractive features include localized fisheries dominated by a single ethnic group and very strong lineage organization which already has been adapted to other commercial operations (small business, the cattle trade, etc.) and hence might be adaptable to the management of limited access fisheries.
Whereas suggested research topics include stage four situations, pilot projects, we believe, should be incorporated within projects that have a reasonable chance for success. While the stage four research topics are concerned with solutions for situations that are out of control, the purpose of the pilot projects is to design and implement successful management strategies. For that reason they should focus more on relatively simple stage two and stage three fisheries in which new strategies can be tested and evolved for subsequent application to more complicated situations.
In addition to a small number of pilot projects implemented within existing projects, a few others might be proposed for specific fisheries which appear to have attractive local participatory features. Examples include possible inland equivalents to the Ghanaian fisheries described by Lawson where such local institutions as Chief Fishermen and their Elders are being strengthened, the Lake Victoria fishing guilds (if they still exist) described by Cory and Hartnoll (1970) for the Tanzanian Haya, the natural floodplain ponds of Nigeria (Awachie, 1979). Zaire (Leynseele, 1979) and elsewhere, the West African fish parks (Welcomme, 1979) and fisheries leased and auctioned to cooperatives and other local organizations as in Tamilnadu, India (Srinivasan and Sreenivasan, 1977).
Finally, the creation of new artificial reservoirs behind dams presents the opportunity for initiating pioneering management systems from the very beginning in connection with "new" fisheries. It also presents the opportunity for assisting the traumatized populations of lake basin relocatees to rebuild their economies by restricting certain fishing areas for their use. The opportunity here to design almost from "scratch" a new management system involving limited access and local participation is tremendous granted the large numbers of dams undergoing construction throughout the tropics.
