Baseline Survey on the Fisheries of Tekeze Reservoir, Ethiopia

Abstract

This baseline survey was aimed to: (Amare, A et al, 2014) assess the role of fisheries of Tekeze in improving fisher’s livelihood; (Andersson J., et al 1998) assess household and individual involvement in fisheries and their inputs used; (Asmare, E., 2015) recommend means of interventions for sustainable use of the fishery resource of Tekeze. Data was collected from September to October 2017 by preparing structured questionnaire and checklists. In addition, mixtures of purposive and random sampling methods were employed to collect the data from 302 sampled households. Finally, the collected data were analyzed by using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Fishing in the study area is the main source of immediate cash income for the household next to crop production. Because of this, 50.33% of the respondents involve in a part time basis and the remaining 32.78% and 16.89% involves in a full time and seasonal basis of fishing respectively. Fishing in the study area is practiced by using both monofilament and multifilament gill nets, hooks, and hook and lines. In addition, the fishing boat, which mostly used are steel boat and planked boat. Mostly, fishers actively participate in fishing starting from October to May and some fishers involves even up to June. A highly significant difference in fishing input ownership were also observed between zones (t = 12.5). Even though highly significant difference in total annual gain from fishing is observed between zones and regions (t = 8.8), fishing plays a considerably important role for fishers (80941.46 ETB per a year on average) including part-time seasonal fishers and crop producer. On the other hand, fishing in the study area is highly gender-biased activity, which makes women’s participation negligible. However, destructive way of fishing by using 4cm stretched mesh sized monofilament gillnets; resource equity problem; poor infrastructure such as; road; and market competition problem are among the main problems in Tekeze fishery.