A Baseline Socioeconomic Assessment of Fishing Communities along the North Coast of Kenya.

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Coral Reef Conservation Project (CRCP) has been carrying out studies of the effects of human activities on reefs, as well as annual monitoring of coral reefs in Kenya for almost two decades. As part of this ongoing initiative, we conducted a socio-economic assessment within the North Coast of Kenya to identify key socio-economic factors affecting inshore coral reef fisheries. The study focused on nine communities: Bamburi, Kuruwitu/Shariana, Mayungu, Mijikenda, Shela, Takaungu, Vipingo, and Vuma/Kayanda. Socio-economic information was gathered using several techniques, including household surveys, resource user key informant interviews, community leader key informant interviews, and oral histories. Informants were asked about aspects of household economics, dependence and perceptions of marine resource use, management, and governance. Communities varied considerably in regards to their dependence on marine resources. Smaller communities such as Mayungu and Mijikenda had greater than 60 and 90 percent of households engaged in the fishery, respectively. However, the proportion of fishers was relatively small in the areas close to Mombasa (Bamburi and Utange). Households that fished generally ranked fishing as their most important occupation. We found extremely high fishing pressure per km2 of shallow water fishing grounds in Takaungu and Vipingo, primarily due to small fishing grounds. There is a clear need to develop regulations that will limit the effect of this intensive fishing effort at these sites. The mean size of fish landed was particularly low at Vipingo (<12cm) and Marina (13cm). There was an array of marine resource governance structures either instituted or in development at the study sites. The Bamburi beach and Marina sites bordered the Mombasa marine park and the Mayungu and Shela sites bordered the Malindi marine park. Fishers from Mijikenda also fished adjacent to the Malindi marine park. Vipingo and Kuruwitu had the highest level of appreciation of closed areas and are attempting to establish a community-based marine protected area. Despite legal prohibitions, a large proportion of fishers at both Marina and Mijikenda engaged in destructive fishing methods, particularly beach seining. There is poor understanding of the factors that influences fisheries and means to improve them and the marine environment. The Kenyan government is developing legislation to decentralize control of inshore marine resources to stakeholders at local landing sites, called Beach Management Units (BMUs). Under this legislation, each landing site will be responsible for developing locally appropriate by-laws to manage fisheries resources in a sustainable manner. With the currently low level of appreciation of human influences on the marine environment and the low number of employment options it will be difficult to improve management conditions and increase restrictions. We, therefore, suggest that it will be important to support this process and potentially use the BMUs as a forum to engage fishers and disseminate information on management and research findings. This will improve their understanding of the factors that influence the marine and fisheries environments and ability to make informed decisions.

Published