Title: Community based co-operative fisheries management for Lake Victoria fisheries in Tanzania

Although fisheries management is a complex task, many countries in the world have managed to develop fisheries management regimes that can improve the economic efficiency of the fisheries. Property rights-based fisheries management regimes have shown promising results in the management of fisheries resources since they reduce or eliminate the incentives for over-capitalisation in harvesting of the fisheries resources and thus contribute to economic efficiency.

Community-based cooperative fisheries management is one of the property rights-based fisheries management systems, which has received attention in recent years particularly in the developing countries.

In Tanzania, community-based cooperative fisheries management seems a feasible option because the current system is entirely based on common property and an open access approach. This approach has led to increased fishing effort, encouraged excessive fishing investment and thus, declining catch trends. A community-based cooperative fisheries management has proposed for Lake Victoria fisheries in Tanzania in order to improve fisheries management. This system recognises the sharing of management responsibilities between fishing communities through beach fisheries management units (BFMUs) and the Fisheries Division in the Ministry of Natural resources and Tourism. The community-based cooperative fisheries management is likely to reduce the problem of over-exploitation of fisheries resources in Lake Victoria by allocating exclusive fishing rights to the fishing communities through BFMUs in their respective villages. Legal mechanism should be developed as a basis of implementation of the community-based cooperative fisheries management in Lake Victoria.