Population dynamics and resource management in small- scale fishing communities in Africa 1998-2000
Timeframe: Jan 1998 - Dec 2000
Funder: The MacArthur Foundation, United States
This multidisciplinary project (demography, geography, fishery biology, sociology)examined population dynamics, development of fishery resources, and sustainable resource usein Moree, a coastal town in Ghana. A sociologial survey, a biophysucal study and in-depth interviews with migrants and leaders of fisheries management institutions was conducted. The study suggests that relationships between population dynamics and fishery resources are more complex than the concept of Malthusian overfishing implies. Reasons include changing biophysical characteristics of the upwelling system along the coast of West Africa; changes in fishing effort; the nonlocal market demand for fish; fisheries migration; and institutions regulating fishery resource and economic changes on migration rather than population pressure on fishery resources. Fisheries management policies must therefore take into account processes that lie beyond the influence of local fishermen.
