The Sustainable Coastal Communities and Ecosystems (SUCCESS) Program : An Inventory of Small-scale Mariculture Activities in Kenya.

Marine farming activity in Kenya is in its infancy. Besides some traditional brackish water ponds and artisanal shrimp and oyster cultivation, coastal aquaculture has been restricted to capital intensive shrimp culture on an experimental scale (UNEP, 1998). Mariculture started in Kenya in the 1980s by the Kenyan Fisheries Department with pond culture of prawns in large scale demonstration ponds at Ngomeni with funding from FAO. Since the pioneering prawn culture project at Ngomeni, several other mariculture species have been tested along the Kenya coast with little or no success: Oyster, prawn, crab, milkfish and seaweed farming. This report is the result of a discussion during the Fourth Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association (WIOMSA) Scientific Symposium that looked at a possibility to establish an aquaculture network in the Western Indian Ocean region. The work has been commissioned by WIOMSA under funding from the SUCCESS project to develop an inventory of small-scale mariculture in Kenya. The inventory has captured small scale mariculture activities that are currently ongoing and producing or passive at the moment with potential planned production in the near future. The assessment attempted to gather views of mariculture groups (present and past), analysed and incorporated them into this report. It has also undertaken a desktop study of past mariculture activities in Kenya to get lessons learnt to help in providing recommendations for the way forward towards sustaining mariculture in the region. In this draft report a total of nine mariculture groups were assessed through interviews with one or more people from the group. These provided a practical insight into the type of mariculture activities that are being undertaken by community groups and their day to day experiences. Through the interviews it was possible to record factors and risks or challenges and potential or opportunities that may contribute to success or failure of such initiatives. The inventory does exhaust all the mariculture groups along the coast of Kenya that are ongoing or temporary stalled with an exception of the fresh water culture initiatives along the coast of Kenya.

Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Mirera, D.O.
Format:	Report biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute 2007
Subjects:	Marine aquaculture, Cage culture, Fish culture, Seaweed culture, Shellfish culture, Inventories, Data collections,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/1834/6983
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