Research and Fisheries Management; the Uneasy Relationship Review of the Zambia-Zimbabwe SADC Fisheries Project

Abstract

This report is an evaluation of the "Zambia-Zimbabwe SADC Fisheries Project". The project aims to establish effective fisheries management regimes for the various fisheries of Lake Kariba. The project has been funded by Norad and Danida since the end of the 1980s. The report argues that considerable achievements have been reached, paricularly in a better understanding the ecology and the stock dynarncs of Lake Kariba and in building biological competence. Achievements regarding the understanding of the dynarncs of fishing communities and markets and in establishing effective management systems are more limited. The project was designed and has largely worked according to an assumption that good quality research in itself represents a sufficient means to establish effective management systems. The development around the lake demonstrates however, that management is about politics and also requires adequate political decisions. Recommendations are made in order to better integrate research resuIts and policies.

Eyolf Jul-Larsen is a social anthropologist and researcher at CMI. Florence Bukali da Graça is a rural sociologist based in Maputo. Jesper Raakjær Nielsen is an economist and researcher at the Institute for Fisheries Management, Hirtshals, Denmark. Paul van Zwieten is a biologist based in Wageningen, Holland.