Establishing a sustainable fishing industry: The role of environmental stringency, fishery training and education infrastructure in the Maritime Cameroon

This paper examines the effects of fishing activities on sustainable fisheries in the Cameroon fishery bodies, while exploring the moderating impact of environmental stringency, fishery training and education infrastructure. A large-scale survey data, covering 511 fishermen and aqua farmers in 25 fishing localities is employed to establish the study's findings. The Conditional Mixed Process (CMP) Ordered Probit and the endogenous switching regression (ESR) models are adopted to establish the study’s findings. The results reveal that fishing efforts, in both inland dams and marine waters, are excessive. These excessive fishing efforts are found to increase the risk of depleting and causing the extinction of fish species. Inland water bodies with fewer species are more prone to experiencing depletion than marine waters with a higher variety of fish species. In addition, the results reveal that strict environmental norms imposed by government officials in fishing communities significantly reduce the likelihood of fishery depletion. When environmental regulations are more stringent, there is a 2.1 % lower chance of extreme fishery species depletion and an 18 % higher chance of no fish species depletion. The findings also suggest that incorporating fishery training programs into fishing activities in Cameroon decreases the likelihood of fish species depletion. Educational initiatives to raise awareness about sustainable fishery practices can also help reduce fishery resource depletion. Additionally, strict environmental regulations are essential in minimizing fish species depletion in inland areas within the Cameroon fishing industry. However, these regulations have minimal impact on marine environments due to the lack of personnel to enforce sustainable practices.