BY ADDISALEM MULAT
Ethiopia’s freshwater system consists of 8,065 km long of rivers and 13,637 km2 area of lakes and reservoirs. Its freshwater system supports small-scale fisheries that sustain livelihoods of considerable number of its people.
Ethiopia’s inland fisheries offer an alternative livelihood for the riparian communities. Omo-Turkana basin is one of the most diverse in its fish species composition. It is also highly productive because of the fresh water inflow from Omo River. It supports high fishery activities sustaining livelihoods of several fishermen from both Ethiopia and Kenya.
Of late, The Ethiopian Herald had a short stay with Prof. Abebe Getahun regarding the nuts and bolts of Omo-Turkana Basin. While on the subject, he is a Professor of Aquatic Biology at the Department of Zoological Sciences, Addis Ababa University (AAU). He was Chairman of the Department for several years and served at various capacities at AAU and Asmara University.
According to the Professor, though up to 79 valid native fish species have been reported to occur in the entire Omo-Turkana basin, 65 species in 39 genera, 20 families and seven orders can be recognized for the Omo-Turkana basin within the limits of Ethiopia.
The commercially important fish species belong to the Genera Lates, Oreochromis, Citharinus, Distichodus, Alestes, Hydrocynus, Bagrus, Synodontis, Auchenoglanis, Schilbe and Labeo.
The Ethiopian Daasanach community (also referred to as Merille by some) is the major inhabitant occupying lower Omo River to the Delta, northern and northeastern shore of the Ethiopian side of the lake.
He went on to say Omo-Turkana is one of the country’s drainage basins that traverse extensive part in southwestern Ethiopia and northern Kenya encompassing a catchment area of 131,000-145,500 km2.
Studies on fish diversity of Lake Turkana started in the 1930s by Cambridge University and continued to present time (Worthington, 1931, 1932; Worthington and Richardo, 1936; Pellegrin, 1935; Hamblyn, 1962; Mann, 1964; Hopson and Hopson, 1982; Kolding, 1989; Wakjira and Getahun, 2017).
“However, development of fisheries in these localities is marred by lack of material and technical support to the fishermen cooperatives, lack of government commitment to capacitate the institutions that work on fisheries management and development, and the continued conflicts between Ethiopian and Kenyan fishermen in an apparent competition over a fertile fishing ground,” he added.
He stressed that the population generally constitutes a pastoralist livelihood with sub-livelihood systems. Those residing along Omo River are semi-pastoralists who used to depend on recession farming. The community living on the northeastern part of Lake Turkana is entirely dependent on Lake Turkana fishing with no other alternative means of livelihood.
He further stressed that fishing is more common in Omo River Delta at the junction with Lake Turkana and around shores of the Ethiopian side of the Lake stretching from west to east. More productivity and fish diversity at Omo Delta could be attributed to the freshwater and nutrient inflow by the Omo River, shallow depth and less salinity.
Of the many landing sites surrounding the Delta and the Lake, the six functional ones include Yerile, Koriagn Lubur, Ocholoch, Fejej, Eriker and Bubu’a from west to east, respectively.
There are individual as well-organized fish traders at each landing site. Accordingly, there are two individual traders at Bubu’a fishing site, one individual trader at Koriagn Lubur site and one Enterprise (Omo Wenz Comprehensive Fish Traders) at Yerile site. This enterprise consists of five members in which one is female.
At present, higher amounts of productions originate from Nile perch fisheries than from Nile tilapia and other small-sized fish groups. A sample of 66 fishermen surveyed by Wakjira (2016) produced an average of 8,259 kg (equivalent to 8.3 tons) of Nile perch fillets per year from Lake Turkana and Omo River while an average of 6,522 kg (equivalent to 6.52 tons) is produced per year of Nile tilapia and other small-sized fish by the same fishermen.
Of these productions, the fishermen are estimated to have consumed 21.24 % while they used to sell the rest of their productions for income (estimated at a gross value of $10,377 per year for the entire 66 fishermen).
Historically, fishing was for the poor and marginalized sector of the community that live essentially at the coastal areas of Omo River and Lake Turkana. However recently, more people are being attracted to the fishing sector due to a shift in livelihood from recession agriculture (locally, “Omoshesh”) and pastoralism. A decrease in recession farming is apparently due to a decrease in Omo River water level.
For the Kenyan side of Lake Turkana, maximum sustainable fisheries yield was estimated at 30,000 tons per year during the 1972-1975 survey using measurement of opercular bones, length measurements of salted-dried fish and estimates from experimental gillnets (Bayley, 1982) while a recent annual catch is 8,000 tons (KMFRI, 2007).
In contrast, both the maximum sustainable yield and the exact annual catch are not exactly known for the Ethiopian sector of the lake and Omo River.
Omo River Delta, reportedly, is a fertile fishing ground supporting high amount of fisheries potential. Most of the consumed fishes are Nile tilapia and other smaller fishes. In contrast, all the fishermen who participated in the present survey rely only on fishing for their livelihood and they fish largely for subsistence (78%).
Majority of these fishermen (45 %) have fished for 10-15 years while considerable numbers (37.5 %) have also fished up to ten years. Moreover, there are no well-organized fisheries management institutions and structures in the locality.
The Ethiopian herald December 16/2020
