Capability and legitimacy of beach management units (BMU's) : to improve fisher's income through management of first-hand sales system in Lake Victoria - Tanzania

Abstract

Depending on the particular institutional and organizational set-up, different management tasks can be suitable for different forms of co-management arrangement. This thesis focuses on examining the possibility of implementing the marketing-oriented fisheries co-management in Lake Victoria (Tanzanian side) for Nile perch fisheries. The community-based organization BMU was selected as fisher’s representative organization in order to investigate how it is possible to improve the fisher’s market performance and reduce poverty in that fishing community. The findings of this study indicated that the globalization of Nile perch fishery has attracted number of actors to join the fishery and among of them are middlemen, processing plants and fishers themselves. The current first-hand sales system has greater contribution on poverty situation to the majority fishers and made few players benefits over resource, especially investors of the fish processing plants and the fish agents. The deliberate ignoring to identify and incorporate the problems, needs and opportunities that exist in the fishing communities under the co-management arrangement has made the fishers community less motivated in the participation of resource management activities. Fight for better fish prices and issuing of credits to fishers were the most prioritized first-hand sales activities that proposed by fishers community to be undertaken by the BMU organization. Capacity building for the BMU is highly needed in order for the organization to undertake its responsibilities efficiently and effectively. Theories used in this study include the poverty theory, co-management, SLA and middlemen theory.

Key words: Co-management, first-hand sales, poverty, BMU’s, Tanzania