Migratory fishing in Malawi and its challenges for beach-based rights co-management

ABSTRACT

Migratory fishing is widely practiced in water bodies of Malawi. Fishers follow geographic changes in the availability of good catches or move away from areas or water bodies where stocks have been depleted to unprofitable levels. They also move due to seasonal ecological changes that make it impossible to operate certain gears or due to seasonal decline of catches to unprofitable levels. There are also instances whereby groups of fishers migrated permanently from less productive areas to more productive areas, for example, the aTonga fishers who moved into the central and southern areas of Lake Malawi from Nkhata Bay in the last century. Thus, these types of fishing migrations can be characterized as permanent, temporary seasonal routine or temporary incidental. The cultural dynamics of migrant fishers vary in that some groups maintain their ethnic practices in their new homes when they migrate permanently, while others integrate into the local communities. Temporary migrants have generally been seen as problematic by the receiving local communities due to the social dissonance, in particular adultery and sexual affairs with school girls, that most bring about since they do not bring their spouses and families with them. Although co-management, implemented in Malawi from the 1990s, was supposed to institute limited access and thus curtail migrant fishing, the structural characteristics of small-scale fisheries and reciprocal migration make it impossible to limit access. The best that local controls resulting from co-management can do has been to try to channel formal reporting by migrant fishers of their presence in an area from local chiefs to Beach Village Committees.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant fishing
• permanent
• temporary
• co-management
• Malawi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Traditionally, and under present day customary law, the local chief had (has) ultimate custody of the land in his area of jurisdiction. Distributive priority went (goes) to members of core lineages in his village who had (have) the right to lifetime use and occupation of the land given to them. Migrants (and uxorilocally married men) did (do) not enjoy such privileges, especially in the early years of their settlement.

2. The chilimira is a conical shaped open-water seine net originally designed for catching utaka (Copadichromis spp.). By lining the bunt with mosquito net, it can be adapted to catch usipa (Engraulicypris sardella). The net is operated using two dugout canoes and one plank boat with a crew of 9. The plank boat and the larger dugout are used for casting and hauling operations while the one who searches for the shoals (siginala) of fish uses the smaller canoe.

3. Until then mobilisation of fishing labour was done along family and kinship ties.

4. This regulation is related to some of the present day principles governing Customary Land Tenure which stipulate that ‘chiefs are trustees and custodians of the land on behalf of their subjects and future generations.

5. The village head persons’ traditional authority does not extend beyond land and is not therefore recognised beyond the beach out onto the lake by fishers. This authority resides with government. Under the revised act of 1997, such authority can be delegated to local management bodies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mafaniso Hara

Mafaniso Hara is a Professor of Natural Resource Governance at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, South Africa. His research interests are in natural resource governance (particularly fisheries) in relation to livelihoods, food and nutrition security and climate change. He has more than 30 years of experience in research and development. He is a member of the Africa Fisheries and Aquaculture Reform Network, which leads continental work on the African Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy Framework and Reform Strategy.

Friday Njaya

Friday Njaya is the Director of Fisheries at the Ministry of Agriculture, Malawi. His research interest mainly focuses on fisheries co-management and livelihoods. He has been an adjunct lecturer in Fisheries Management and Economics at Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources and is a United Nations University—Fisheries Training Programme fellow.